Angela Merkel, stand strong against Euro-bonds!
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Jerusalem Post
08/23/2011 22:56
Europe’s stronger economies must keep the financial barbarians at bay.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
The financial barbarians are at the gates of the Euro. Ironically, today it is Germany – home of the barbarians who destroyed Europe’s first common market, Rome – that is standing against the new debt-indulging savages.
In recent days European Union bureaucrats and other commentators have been arguing that a long term solution to the debt problems haunting certain European countries could be found in Euro bonds.
Olli Rehn, EU Economics and Monetary Affairs commissioner, has explained that “These euro securities would aim to strengthen fiscal discipline and increase stability in the euro area through the markets.”
President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso has been arguing for months that a common Euro Zone bond might be a good idea. He said in December: “Let us not kill the euro bonds idea for the future, but let us concentrate now on what we can do quickly.”
A 2011 paper by Prof. Nicholas Economides and Prof. Roy Smith at NYU suggested a similar type of bond for Europe called a Trichet bond, after European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet. In this scenario, the EU would issue bonds that could be exchanged for the rotting debt of certain EU nations.
“Present holders of sovereign debt will be exchanging low-quality bonds with limited liquidity for higher-quality bonds with greater liquidity.” They also argued that “without a workable EU remedy for the sovereign-debt problems, countries like Portugal, Spain and Italy are being treated by the market, (which so far has ignored the European rescue fund and related efforts to calm the crisis) as potential defaulters.”
The idea being presented is that the EU should issue a form of debt in order that junk bonds can be traded in for higher-quality bonds.
This is sort of like the collateralized debt obligations that allowed supprime mortgages to be resold as “safe” investments – the shenanigan that created the American financial meltdown of 2008. The idea for the Euro bond is only slightly different than the Trichet bond; it supposes that the EU create bonds that the 17-nation EU would be responsible for repaying in order to refinance the debt of countries that can’t keep themselves off the hooch.
GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have both rejected the idea of Euro bonds. Commentators have pointed out that issuing such bonds might go against the constitutions of member states. It would also increase the power of the EU, and diminish the budgetary independence of the member states.
Goldman Sachs economist Dirk Schumacher noted that it would mean “further change of the institutional setup of the euro zone, with more oversight and control from Brussels.”
Those promoting Euro bonds are trying to push them through the door when European countries are at their weakest. They claim they are the only way to save the Euro.
In essence they are using the crises to forever weaken the rights of hardworking, financially responsible Europeans, pushing through a new financial instrument that would compel the Germans and French to work forever in a form of indentured servitude so that Greek, Italian and Spanish governments can continue to rack up debts. It is a twisted form of Karl Marx’s 1875 creed “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
The Germans and French have the ability, the others have the need.
The problem is that the Germans and French (and other responsible European nations) are already being forced to pay for the mistakes of weaker economies. In May 2010, as part of a rescue package to save European debtor nations, the European Central Bank (ECB) began purchasing the sovereign debt of those countries. So far it has bought 110 billion Euros worth of Spanish and Italian debt. The reason is to keep the borrowing costs of these nations lower, keeping their interest rates lower so they don’t get themselves even deeper in debt. This is a short-term solution of course; the ECB can’t buy debt forever. In fact, the cap on this latest bailout fund is 450 billion euros. But the ECB has been right to try to stem the flow, because some of the rise in interest rates on these nation’s bonds have been caused by speculators.
THE PROBLEM with the EU-bond scenario is that it would make Germany responsible for the actions of others. Greece has managed to rack up debt to a tune of 160% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while Italy’s is at 120%. By contrast, Germany owes just 80% – still a high figure. Germany is Europe’s most productive nation, and the anchor of the Euro, yet it is being pushed into a corner. There is a belief that if Greece or Italy is allowed to default on its debt that the debt contagion would spread to France and then to Germany. To save Germany, therefore, the financial barbarians must be kept at bay.
But the problem is that the barbarians are already inside the gates, and are being allowed, every day, to eat away at the sound policies of other countries. The solution shouldn’t be to give the barbarians a blank check called Euro bonds that allows them to make other nations keep paying for their mistakes.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Terra Incognita The Boring Jewish State?
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=234051
The Jerusalem Post
Terra Incognita: The boring Jewish state?
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
08/17/2011 00:00
Why is there such a fear of taking Jews to see minorities of Israel? Why fear of them meeting Russians, Yemenites, Moroccans, Ethiopians?
‘I’m Japanese, but every time I go back to the home country, it’s just boring, the whole story of the mythical samurai past. Finally I got an opportunity to visit Japan via a Japanese cultural association with the goal of studying and interacting with the ‘other.’ We met North Korean refugees seeking asylum, Chinese minorities, an American working in a corporate firm, a member of an indigenous minority from Okinawa and gay activists. Only through meeting all these people could I finally appreciate Japan. Japanese-Americans are tired of hearing just Japan’s Japanese history; to relate to their ancient land, they must learn about the ‘other.’”
Of course, these words were never spoken by a Japanese person. How many Japanese-Americans, if they care about Japan, can only relate to it if they relate to the Chinese minorities there? How many Indian-Americans can only relate to mother India by relating to the Parsi minority in Mumbai? How many Iranian-Americans find they can care about Iran only through learning about its Azeri and Baluchi communities? Yet some portion of the world’s Jewish community finds that the only thing interesting in Israel is stories of Beduin, Israeli-Arabs, African refugees and Palestinians.
Israel is just downright boring, so long as it involves stories about the Jews.
Sarah Schonberg echoed these sentiments in an oped in The Forward: “American youth are indifferent to hearing just one story and being told to accept it without question.” She tells how she had little interest in Israel until she attended a Hebrew College trip aimed at introducing American Jews to the “other” there, namely Israeli Arabs. “To overlook a population of this size is akin to ignoring the entire black, Asian, Native-American and multi-racial populations in the US,” she wrote.
Her story is similar to many other stories of Jews who find Israel mundane, unless they can view the country through the prism of social justice and activism for minority rights.
Through generations of living as minorities in the Diaspora, Jews have been at the forefront of fighting for minority rights. It’s no surprise that it was a Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, who came up with the concept of the “other.” So when Jews come to Israel, they immediately want to find the minorities, accustomed as they are to the concept that only minorities are interesting. Because Jews tend to view the concept of what constitutes a Jew through the prism with which they grew up, they also tend to homogenize the Jewish community in Israel. Thus, while Schonberg pays passing heed to the “cultural diversity that makes up the Jewish community in Israel,” she doesn’t mention any Jewish minorities.
The type of fact-finding trip that Hebrew College ran has become increasingly common. The New Israel Fund has been organizing them for a while, bringing Jews from the US to Israel to see the “other” on study tours. A standard trip consists of visits with Beduin, Israeli Arabs, African refugees, more Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, Palestinians in Hebron, and maybe, if people are lucky, more Beduin and, as an aside, an Ethiopian Jew.
In transit, the tour leaders point out the “Jews”: hotels in Tel Aviv, wineries in Zichron Ya’acov, everything to present Jews as the wealthiest, “whitest” elite in the country, in contrast to the poverty-stricken, discriminated- against “black” minorities. This plays well to American Jewish sentiments. As veterans in the civil rights struggle, American Jews are used to the dichotomy of white and black, and as fighters for immigrant rights, they are used to the Manichean absolutes of the wealthy and the poor.
The types of trips now being sold, primarily to American Jews, seek to “connect” them with Israel the only way the trip leaders know how: through the “others” with whom Jews feel naturally comfortable.
Contrast this with the Zionistic tours that give Jews “one story.”
But why is there no happy medium? Why is there such a fear of taking Jews to see the Jewish minorities of Israel? Why is there a fear of letting them meet Russians, Yemenites, Moroccans, Ethiopians and haredim, to name a few? The fear on the part of the birthright trips, and those like them, is that Jews might be shocked to see poverty and not think the country a success. The fear on the part of those like the New Israel Fund or Hebrew College is that they might not be able to push their agenda of the “other.”
It isn’t all the fault of the educators; people like Schonberg travel all over the world, and find most countries fascinating without spending all their time among the “other.” In Iran they don’t look for Baluchis, in Japan they don’t look for Koreans, in South Africa they don’t need Afrikaners, in Egypt they don’t want to meet Nubians. They are fine with majority narratives for every country except Israel and America. The cultural milieu from which they come ascribes boring traits to Jews.
There is nothing wrong with introducing people to the “other” in Israel, but it is essential that they see all the others, not just a cookie-cutter image from the West into which Israel is forced to be subsumed so it can be understood.
The Jerusalem Post
Terra Incognita: The boring Jewish state?
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
08/17/2011 00:00
Why is there such a fear of taking Jews to see minorities of Israel? Why fear of them meeting Russians, Yemenites, Moroccans, Ethiopians?
‘I’m Japanese, but every time I go back to the home country, it’s just boring, the whole story of the mythical samurai past. Finally I got an opportunity to visit Japan via a Japanese cultural association with the goal of studying and interacting with the ‘other.’ We met North Korean refugees seeking asylum, Chinese minorities, an American working in a corporate firm, a member of an indigenous minority from Okinawa and gay activists. Only through meeting all these people could I finally appreciate Japan. Japanese-Americans are tired of hearing just Japan’s Japanese history; to relate to their ancient land, they must learn about the ‘other.’”
Of course, these words were never spoken by a Japanese person. How many Japanese-Americans, if they care about Japan, can only relate to it if they relate to the Chinese minorities there? How many Indian-Americans can only relate to mother India by relating to the Parsi minority in Mumbai? How many Iranian-Americans find they can care about Iran only through learning about its Azeri and Baluchi communities? Yet some portion of the world’s Jewish community finds that the only thing interesting in Israel is stories of Beduin, Israeli-Arabs, African refugees and Palestinians.
Israel is just downright boring, so long as it involves stories about the Jews.
Sarah Schonberg echoed these sentiments in an oped in The Forward: “American youth are indifferent to hearing just one story and being told to accept it without question.” She tells how she had little interest in Israel until she attended a Hebrew College trip aimed at introducing American Jews to the “other” there, namely Israeli Arabs. “To overlook a population of this size is akin to ignoring the entire black, Asian, Native-American and multi-racial populations in the US,” she wrote.
Her story is similar to many other stories of Jews who find Israel mundane, unless they can view the country through the prism of social justice and activism for minority rights.
Through generations of living as minorities in the Diaspora, Jews have been at the forefront of fighting for minority rights. It’s no surprise that it was a Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, who came up with the concept of the “other.” So when Jews come to Israel, they immediately want to find the minorities, accustomed as they are to the concept that only minorities are interesting. Because Jews tend to view the concept of what constitutes a Jew through the prism with which they grew up, they also tend to homogenize the Jewish community in Israel. Thus, while Schonberg pays passing heed to the “cultural diversity that makes up the Jewish community in Israel,” she doesn’t mention any Jewish minorities.
The type of fact-finding trip that Hebrew College ran has become increasingly common. The New Israel Fund has been organizing them for a while, bringing Jews from the US to Israel to see the “other” on study tours. A standard trip consists of visits with Beduin, Israeli Arabs, African refugees, more Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, Palestinians in Hebron, and maybe, if people are lucky, more Beduin and, as an aside, an Ethiopian Jew.
In transit, the tour leaders point out the “Jews”: hotels in Tel Aviv, wineries in Zichron Ya’acov, everything to present Jews as the wealthiest, “whitest” elite in the country, in contrast to the poverty-stricken, discriminated- against “black” minorities. This plays well to American Jewish sentiments. As veterans in the civil rights struggle, American Jews are used to the dichotomy of white and black, and as fighters for immigrant rights, they are used to the Manichean absolutes of the wealthy and the poor.
The types of trips now being sold, primarily to American Jews, seek to “connect” them with Israel the only way the trip leaders know how: through the “others” with whom Jews feel naturally comfortable.
Contrast this with the Zionistic tours that give Jews “one story.”
But why is there no happy medium? Why is there such a fear of taking Jews to see the Jewish minorities of Israel? Why is there a fear of letting them meet Russians, Yemenites, Moroccans, Ethiopians and haredim, to name a few? The fear on the part of the birthright trips, and those like them, is that Jews might be shocked to see poverty and not think the country a success. The fear on the part of those like the New Israel Fund or Hebrew College is that they might not be able to push their agenda of the “other.”
It isn’t all the fault of the educators; people like Schonberg travel all over the world, and find most countries fascinating without spending all their time among the “other.” In Iran they don’t look for Baluchis, in Japan they don’t look for Koreans, in South Africa they don’t need Afrikaners, in Egypt they don’t want to meet Nubians. They are fine with majority narratives for every country except Israel and America. The cultural milieu from which they come ascribes boring traits to Jews.
There is nothing wrong with introducing people to the “other” in Israel, but it is essential that they see all the others, not just a cookie-cutter image from the West into which Israel is forced to be subsumed so it can be understood.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Terra Incognita: Baseless Hatred of the Haredim
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=233169
Terra Incognita: Baseless hatred of the haredim
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
08/10/2011 06:22
It is essential that people search their souls and ask why they acquiesce so easily to canards about the ultra-orthodox community and statements made against it.
One of the central messages of Tisha Be’av, which took place yesterday, is the consequences of Sinat Hinam or baseless hatred. During the period of the Second Temple Jews quarreled so much among themselves that it brought ruin upon the Jewish people.
Today, with the housing protests that have swept the country, it is worthwhile to pause and ponder one type of baseless hatred that is often not acknowledged: hatred of the Ultra-Orthodox or haredi community.
T
he savage hatred of haredim comes in many forms. It begins with the things people say; how the haredim are “parasites” who don’t pay taxes and don’t go to the army, that they beat their wives and create a “mini- Tehran” in their communities, that they are dirty, smelly “dosim” and that they “infiltrate” the wonderful utopian secular neighborhoods. Oh, and of course, they are ignorant donkeys who hate Zionism and are intolerant of homosexuals, Arabs and blacks.
This hate is on display everywhere in symbolic acts.
Swastikas sprayed on a synagogue in Kfar Yona, where the secular residents fear a haredi “takeover”. The Eruv (wire surrounding a religious community that allows them to carry items on Shabbat) is cut in Kiryat Yovel by self-proclaimed secular resistance fighters. The huge signs erected by Meretz during its campaign for Jerusalem city council in 2008 that read “End the Haredization of Jerusalem.” A student at Hebrew University does doctoral work analyzing how the haredim invaded Kiryat Yovel, as if anyone can imagine an open minded university sponsoring the work of someone wanting to analyze how Arabs “took over” the Wolfson neighborhood in Acre.
THE HATRED of the haredi population is greatest among those who preach tolerance. Meretz, a far left political party, campaigns to end the haredi infiltration of Jerusalem’s secular bastions, but at the same time it complains of racism when Jews don’t want Arabs moving into Pisgat Zeev. Righteous people denounce the “acceptance committee law” that allows small communities to reject applicants, but the same people don’t seem to mind if a secular community opposes haredim moving to the area simply because they might change the character of the neighborhood. There was an outcry in the country when Rabbis signed a letter asking people not to rent apartments to Arabs in Safed, but there is no outcry among the ‘civil rights’ lobby when Ram Fruman created the Forum for Secular Communities, whose sole goal is to prevent haredi people from moving to “secular” areas. Fruman says “Our association works on two levels – at the local level, in sharing experience, knowledge and resources; and at the national level, in creating a political lobby that can take the lead with public action.” One imagines if the haredim just disguised themselves as Arabs they would be welcomed by the “open minded” secular elites and their rights to move where they want would be defended at the highest levels.
The hatred of the haredi population transcends all political and ethnic groups in Israel; Arabs, leftists, the national religious, free market liberals, even Ethiopians, all have a generally visceral dislike for the black hat.
Nechamia Stressler, the usually level headed columnist at Haaretz says they offer only “rotten goods, rife with ignorance, superstition.” Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv, described them as “aloof and ignorant people who are growing at an alarming rate.” Yuval Tumarkin, artist and winner of the Israel Prize, once said “when one sees the haredim one understands why there was a Holocaust.”
HAREDIM KNOW they are hated. Aharon Yakter, who lives in Bnei Brak, recalls that “I grew up near Sheinkin street in Tel Aviv until the age of 18. They never yelled 'dos' back then.” But nowadays if a hated haredi shows his face on the trendy street the secular community would feel no qualms about banding together to oppose the “infiltration.” Every Israeli should be ashamed that they speak of the haredim the way they do. There is nothing honorable in denying religious Jews the ability to live where they want.
The myths used to justify baseless hatred of the haredim are legion. One accuses them of not going to the army, but there are an equal number of secular draft dodgers as there are haredi ones, and the secular draft dodgers aren’t forced to attend Yeshiva in lieu of army service. Yet we don’t call the secular population “parasites.”
The student unions and other social organizations rail against funding for Yeshiva students, but that funding, about NIS 135 million for 13,000 students in 2010, provides less than $250 a month to the religious students, similar or less than most secular student scholarships.
The student union complains about equality, but the reality is that the secular public drains the state’s coffers and drinks at the same trough as the haredi public.
And what about hatred of the state, do certain haredi groups (i.e Neturei Karta) hate the state at a greater rate than, say, university lecturers in the Cohn Institute of History and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University? At least the haredi public is not at the forefront of all the ‘human rights’ organizations that support boycotts and accuse the country of apartheid.
BASELESS HATRED didn’t disappear this Tisha Be’av, but it is essential that, at least every once in a while, people search their souls and ask why they acquiesce so easily to canards about the ultra-orthodox community and statements made against it. The haredim aren’t angels, and their community is not a utopia, but then again, neither are any of the communities in Israel. Recognizing that as a starting point will increase tolerance, for the better.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Terra Incognita: Baseless hatred of the haredim
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
08/10/2011 06:22
It is essential that people search their souls and ask why they acquiesce so easily to canards about the ultra-orthodox community and statements made against it.
One of the central messages of Tisha Be’av, which took place yesterday, is the consequences of Sinat Hinam or baseless hatred. During the period of the Second Temple Jews quarreled so much among themselves that it brought ruin upon the Jewish people.
Today, with the housing protests that have swept the country, it is worthwhile to pause and ponder one type of baseless hatred that is often not acknowledged: hatred of the Ultra-Orthodox or haredi community.
T
he savage hatred of haredim comes in many forms. It begins with the things people say; how the haredim are “parasites” who don’t pay taxes and don’t go to the army, that they beat their wives and create a “mini- Tehran” in their communities, that they are dirty, smelly “dosim” and that they “infiltrate” the wonderful utopian secular neighborhoods. Oh, and of course, they are ignorant donkeys who hate Zionism and are intolerant of homosexuals, Arabs and blacks.
This hate is on display everywhere in symbolic acts.
Swastikas sprayed on a synagogue in Kfar Yona, where the secular residents fear a haredi “takeover”. The Eruv (wire surrounding a religious community that allows them to carry items on Shabbat) is cut in Kiryat Yovel by self-proclaimed secular resistance fighters. The huge signs erected by Meretz during its campaign for Jerusalem city council in 2008 that read “End the Haredization of Jerusalem.” A student at Hebrew University does doctoral work analyzing how the haredim invaded Kiryat Yovel, as if anyone can imagine an open minded university sponsoring the work of someone wanting to analyze how Arabs “took over” the Wolfson neighborhood in Acre.
THE HATRED of the haredi population is greatest among those who preach tolerance. Meretz, a far left political party, campaigns to end the haredi infiltration of Jerusalem’s secular bastions, but at the same time it complains of racism when Jews don’t want Arabs moving into Pisgat Zeev. Righteous people denounce the “acceptance committee law” that allows small communities to reject applicants, but the same people don’t seem to mind if a secular community opposes haredim moving to the area simply because they might change the character of the neighborhood. There was an outcry in the country when Rabbis signed a letter asking people not to rent apartments to Arabs in Safed, but there is no outcry among the ‘civil rights’ lobby when Ram Fruman created the Forum for Secular Communities, whose sole goal is to prevent haredi people from moving to “secular” areas. Fruman says “Our association works on two levels – at the local level, in sharing experience, knowledge and resources; and at the national level, in creating a political lobby that can take the lead with public action.” One imagines if the haredim just disguised themselves as Arabs they would be welcomed by the “open minded” secular elites and their rights to move where they want would be defended at the highest levels.
The hatred of the haredi population transcends all political and ethnic groups in Israel; Arabs, leftists, the national religious, free market liberals, even Ethiopians, all have a generally visceral dislike for the black hat.
Nechamia Stressler, the usually level headed columnist at Haaretz says they offer only “rotten goods, rife with ignorance, superstition.” Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv, described them as “aloof and ignorant people who are growing at an alarming rate.” Yuval Tumarkin, artist and winner of the Israel Prize, once said “when one sees the haredim one understands why there was a Holocaust.”
HAREDIM KNOW they are hated. Aharon Yakter, who lives in Bnei Brak, recalls that “I grew up near Sheinkin street in Tel Aviv until the age of 18. They never yelled 'dos' back then.” But nowadays if a hated haredi shows his face on the trendy street the secular community would feel no qualms about banding together to oppose the “infiltration.” Every Israeli should be ashamed that they speak of the haredim the way they do. There is nothing honorable in denying religious Jews the ability to live where they want.
The myths used to justify baseless hatred of the haredim are legion. One accuses them of not going to the army, but there are an equal number of secular draft dodgers as there are haredi ones, and the secular draft dodgers aren’t forced to attend Yeshiva in lieu of army service. Yet we don’t call the secular population “parasites.”
The student unions and other social organizations rail against funding for Yeshiva students, but that funding, about NIS 135 million for 13,000 students in 2010, provides less than $250 a month to the religious students, similar or less than most secular student scholarships.
The student union complains about equality, but the reality is that the secular public drains the state’s coffers and drinks at the same trough as the haredi public.
And what about hatred of the state, do certain haredi groups (i.e Neturei Karta) hate the state at a greater rate than, say, university lecturers in the Cohn Institute of History and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University? At least the haredi public is not at the forefront of all the ‘human rights’ organizations that support boycotts and accuse the country of apartheid.
BASELESS HATRED didn’t disappear this Tisha Be’av, but it is essential that, at least every once in a while, people search their souls and ask why they acquiesce so easily to canards about the ultra-orthodox community and statements made against it. The haredim aren’t angels, and their community is not a utopia, but then again, neither are any of the communities in Israel. Recognizing that as a starting point will increase tolerance, for the better.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Terra Incognita: The Foreign Worker Catch 22 in Israel
The foreign workers’ ‘Catch-22'
In the Jerusalem Post
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=229060
07/12/2011 23:21
Rights and Responsibility: The migrant workers who choose to come to Israel are adults. It is time we started treating them as such.
Israel is increasingly living in a catch-22 regarding foreign workers and their rights. First of all, it is considered unacceptable to bind foreign workers to their employers. Second, the courts have determined that foreign workers who get pregnant may not be deported under the previous law that voided their work permits if they gave birth. Third, the courts have determined that it is also illegal to deport foreign workers who have just given birth.
The catch-22 is that the foreign workers are, by default, encouraged to have children in order to stay in the country. Once they have children, it becomes impossible to deport them because of all the petitions against deporting their children. For instance, in March 2011 the Interior Ministry postponed deporting foreign workers and their children because it didn’t want to “disrupt the studies of children enrolled in school.” It appears that once a female foreign worker enters the country, it is almost assured that she will not leave, and that ipso facto she and her children will receive unlimited rights to remain.
DISCUSSION ABOUT the foreign workers, of whom there are thought to be more than 300,000, always revolves around their “rights.” When Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia overturned the policy of deporting those that were pregnant or had just had children, she said “it affects [the worker’s] right to be a parent, to have a family and to support herself. The policy is incongruent with Israeli labor laws that safeguard the rights of the woman both during and after birth.” But why does the supposed “right” to a family transcend the laws of a country where one has chosen to come as a worker? Let’s say, for arguments sake, that the foreign workers didn’t look so “foreign” and didn’t come across in photos as “victims.” If they looked like educated Europeans (still foreign, but not that foreign), would their case be as compelling? Do we have much compassion for a European couple that moves to Israel, for whatever reason, has a child here, and which the state subsequently orders deported for overstaying a visa? Would there be an outcry that the child might be yanked out of school? Be honest with yourself. If it was 300,000 Europeans in Tel Aviv and we read about them being deported, wouldn’t we shrug and say “well, they should have obeyed the law.”
So the reality of the foreign round-about is the feeling that somehow they are not educated enough and don’t look responsible enough to read the law and make responsible choices. This is a very real paternalistic, nay racist, reality. I have had American and European non-Jewish friends who got pregnant here or moved here with their children. They understand the strain they are putting the child under by raising it in a temporary foreign environment. Similarly, Americans and Europeans living in the Gulf Arab states, Japan, Mexico or wherever are not considered victims if they are deported, with their children, for overstaying a visa or violating the conditions of their employment contract.
By deporting foreign workers, their “rights” to a family are not being harmed; they are merely being asked to be responsible adults, responsible toward the law and their children. By always passing the buck and keeping them from being deported when pregnant, and then after giving birth, and then once the children are in kindergarten, the courts are merely belittling them and treating them as irresponsibles who can’t make choices about reproduction.
IN THE face of a wave of foreign workers, sense and responsibility has been checked at the border and incoherent paternalism has become the law of the land. We must look at foreign workers as people like us, and demand that they receive not only certain rights but also bear certain responsibilities. Once responsibility is part of the equation, the catch-22 that has become the norm will begin to correct itself.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
In the Jerusalem Post
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=229060
07/12/2011 23:21
Rights and Responsibility: The migrant workers who choose to come to Israel are adults. It is time we started treating them as such.
Israel is increasingly living in a catch-22 regarding foreign workers and their rights. First of all, it is considered unacceptable to bind foreign workers to their employers. Second, the courts have determined that foreign workers who get pregnant may not be deported under the previous law that voided their work permits if they gave birth. Third, the courts have determined that it is also illegal to deport foreign workers who have just given birth.
The catch-22 is that the foreign workers are, by default, encouraged to have children in order to stay in the country. Once they have children, it becomes impossible to deport them because of all the petitions against deporting their children. For instance, in March 2011 the Interior Ministry postponed deporting foreign workers and their children because it didn’t want to “disrupt the studies of children enrolled in school.” It appears that once a female foreign worker enters the country, it is almost assured that she will not leave, and that ipso facto she and her children will receive unlimited rights to remain.
DISCUSSION ABOUT the foreign workers, of whom there are thought to be more than 300,000, always revolves around their “rights.” When Supreme Court Justice Ayala Procaccia overturned the policy of deporting those that were pregnant or had just had children, she said “it affects [the worker’s] right to be a parent, to have a family and to support herself. The policy is incongruent with Israeli labor laws that safeguard the rights of the woman both during and after birth.” But why does the supposed “right” to a family transcend the laws of a country where one has chosen to come as a worker? Let’s say, for arguments sake, that the foreign workers didn’t look so “foreign” and didn’t come across in photos as “victims.” If they looked like educated Europeans (still foreign, but not that foreign), would their case be as compelling? Do we have much compassion for a European couple that moves to Israel, for whatever reason, has a child here, and which the state subsequently orders deported for overstaying a visa? Would there be an outcry that the child might be yanked out of school? Be honest with yourself. If it was 300,000 Europeans in Tel Aviv and we read about them being deported, wouldn’t we shrug and say “well, they should have obeyed the law.”
So the reality of the foreign round-about is the feeling that somehow they are not educated enough and don’t look responsible enough to read the law and make responsible choices. This is a very real paternalistic, nay racist, reality. I have had American and European non-Jewish friends who got pregnant here or moved here with their children. They understand the strain they are putting the child under by raising it in a temporary foreign environment. Similarly, Americans and Europeans living in the Gulf Arab states, Japan, Mexico or wherever are not considered victims if they are deported, with their children, for overstaying a visa or violating the conditions of their employment contract.
By deporting foreign workers, their “rights” to a family are not being harmed; they are merely being asked to be responsible adults, responsible toward the law and their children. By always passing the buck and keeping them from being deported when pregnant, and then after giving birth, and then once the children are in kindergarten, the courts are merely belittling them and treating them as irresponsibles who can’t make choices about reproduction.
IN THE face of a wave of foreign workers, sense and responsibility has been checked at the border and incoherent paternalism has become the law of the land. We must look at foreign workers as people like us, and demand that they receive not only certain rights but also bear certain responsibilities. Once responsibility is part of the equation, the catch-22 that has become the norm will begin to correct itself.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Terra Incognita: A Palestinian DInar
A question of the Palestinian dinar
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=225997
06/21/2011 23:54
Terra Incognita: What currency will the Palestinians use in the wake of their quest to seek recognition for a state in September?
Talkbacks (9)
There is a Facebook page circulating that purports to show an unofficial Palestinian passport stamp designed by an artist named Kahled Jarrar. But Jarrar’s homemade stamp is less important than another pressing issue: What currency will the Palestinians use in the wake of their quest to seek recognition for their state in September?
It isn’t a simple matter, as history will show. After the US declared independence in 1776, it was 10 years before Congress actually approved the use of the dollar as the official currency. And it wasn’t until 1792 that the first US mint, sanctioned by the government to print money, was inaugurated in Philadelphia (then the American capital).
By the time of the Civil War, the question of currency had gained more urgency. Only a month after the Confederate States of America had been formed, it began to issue its own currency in April 1861. As is well known, the Confederate dollar quickly depreciated, since it was not backed by assets, and became virtually worthless by 1864.
To examine the successes and failures of new national currencies, it is worth looking at several examples.
East Timor seems to be a prime case. Slightly smaller than Israel, East Timor is at the end of the Indonesia archipelago. In 1975 its colonial occupier, Portugal, decided to withdraw, and the Timorese declared independence in November of that year. However, only a month later, it was invaded by Indonesia in a campaign of massacre that began 25 years of brutal rule. The UN never recognized Indonesian sovereignty, and declared the country a “non-self governing territory under Portuguese administration.”
In 1999, after Indonesian human rights violations became widely known, a UN-sponsored referendum resulted in the territory becoming independent.
The Timorese got rid of the hated Indonesian rupiah, but instead of adopting their own currency, they began using the US dollar. The imposition of the dollar on the Timorese was completely a product of the UN’s semi-colonial administration that ran the country in 2000, and whose tentacles have never been completely removed. For a brief period, the UN National Consultative Council favored using the Portuguese escudo, but that idea was scratched when it became clear that the Portuguese were embracing the euro. The rupiah couldn’t be retained, not only because it was disliked, but because it was an unstable currency, and it meant East Timor’s future would be tied to the Indonesian economy.
Luis Valdivieso, head of the IMF office in East Timor, said: “I think the main consideration has been one of pragmatic consideration given the fact that t is urgent now [in 2000] to receive the payments on execution of the budget.” Yet the local people wanted their own currency. A coalition of former resistance leaders noted: “We believe the national currency should be an affirmation of independence and sovereignty.”
To no avail; the East Timorese continue to be honorary Americans, in the economic sense.
Kosovo is another case in point. Kosovo became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, when the Turkish sultan overran what was then part of the Kingdom of Serbia. While it was once part of Serbia or Yugoslavia, a 1999 rebellion by Kosovo Albanians resulted in a bombing campaign by NATO and the occupation of the province by the UN. That year, the UN adopted the German mark as a replacement for the Serbian dinar. Use of the mark led directly to the imposition of the euro when the country declared independence in 2008. Yet, like East Timor, Kosovo remains in many ways a colony of the UN and various NGOs and international organizations. Because Kosovo hopes to join the EU one day, it has been using the euro rather than adopting the Albanian lek, the currency of its ethnically related neighbor.
Somaliland presents a more unique story. A large and sparsely populated country on the horn of Africa, Somaliland was initially colonized by the British. In 1960, after a few days of independence, it joined with Italian Somaliland to form modern-day Somalia. After years of misgovernment and a long running civil war, the territory decided to seek independence, which it declared in 1991. In 1994, Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal inaugurated a new currency, called the Somaliland shilling. The currency was briefly minted in England at the Pobjoy Mint, which prints money for 37 small countries and overseas territories. It doesn’t seem that the currency has been very successful, and it isn’t currently being minted.
Another breakaway republic, Western Sahara, was governed by its colonizer, Spain, until decolonization in 1975, when Morocco and Mauritania occupied the country.
The local independence movement briefly attempted to create its own currency called the Sahwari paseta, pegged to the old Spanish paseta.
Other countries have successfully established currencies. The post-Soviet states that gained independence in 1990 have mostly created their own currencies. Latvia, for instance, re-instituted the lats – once used in 1922 – to replace the ruble.
Perhaps it is interesting to look at Israeli history to see how a new currency can be created. The British invaded Palestine in 1917, but continued to use the Ottoman lira alongside the Egyptian pound until 1927.
In that year the Palestinian pound was introduced, and was pegged to the British pound. After independence, it took Israel four years to fully adopt the Israeli lira. By contrast, the Jordanians adopted the dinar in 1949. The Palestinian pound continued to circulate in the West Bank until 1950, when it was replaced by the Jordanian dinar, and in Gaza until 1951, when it was replaced by the Egyptian pound.
What do the Palestinians think they will use as a currency? On May 31, The Washington Post reported that there was some discussion about replacing the shekel, which is used in Gaza and the West Bank.
Jihad al-Wazir, governor of the Palestinian monetary authority, has noted that “all options are open.”
Some argue for bringing back the Palestinian pound. Others prefer a closer connection to the Jordanian dinar. One Palestinian woman with whom I spoke dismissed my confusion: “Won’t it be a Palestinian lira?”
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=225997
06/21/2011 23:54
Terra Incognita: What currency will the Palestinians use in the wake of their quest to seek recognition for a state in September?
Talkbacks (9)
There is a Facebook page circulating that purports to show an unofficial Palestinian passport stamp designed by an artist named Kahled Jarrar. But Jarrar’s homemade stamp is less important than another pressing issue: What currency will the Palestinians use in the wake of their quest to seek recognition for their state in September?
It isn’t a simple matter, as history will show. After the US declared independence in 1776, it was 10 years before Congress actually approved the use of the dollar as the official currency. And it wasn’t until 1792 that the first US mint, sanctioned by the government to print money, was inaugurated in Philadelphia (then the American capital).
By the time of the Civil War, the question of currency had gained more urgency. Only a month after the Confederate States of America had been formed, it began to issue its own currency in April 1861. As is well known, the Confederate dollar quickly depreciated, since it was not backed by assets, and became virtually worthless by 1864.
To examine the successes and failures of new national currencies, it is worth looking at several examples.
East Timor seems to be a prime case. Slightly smaller than Israel, East Timor is at the end of the Indonesia archipelago. In 1975 its colonial occupier, Portugal, decided to withdraw, and the Timorese declared independence in November of that year. However, only a month later, it was invaded by Indonesia in a campaign of massacre that began 25 years of brutal rule. The UN never recognized Indonesian sovereignty, and declared the country a “non-self governing territory under Portuguese administration.”
In 1999, after Indonesian human rights violations became widely known, a UN-sponsored referendum resulted in the territory becoming independent.
The Timorese got rid of the hated Indonesian rupiah, but instead of adopting their own currency, they began using the US dollar. The imposition of the dollar on the Timorese was completely a product of the UN’s semi-colonial administration that ran the country in 2000, and whose tentacles have never been completely removed. For a brief period, the UN National Consultative Council favored using the Portuguese escudo, but that idea was scratched when it became clear that the Portuguese were embracing the euro. The rupiah couldn’t be retained, not only because it was disliked, but because it was an unstable currency, and it meant East Timor’s future would be tied to the Indonesian economy.
Luis Valdivieso, head of the IMF office in East Timor, said: “I think the main consideration has been one of pragmatic consideration given the fact that t is urgent now [in 2000] to receive the payments on execution of the budget.” Yet the local people wanted their own currency. A coalition of former resistance leaders noted: “We believe the national currency should be an affirmation of independence and sovereignty.”
To no avail; the East Timorese continue to be honorary Americans, in the economic sense.
Kosovo is another case in point. Kosovo became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, when the Turkish sultan overran what was then part of the Kingdom of Serbia. While it was once part of Serbia or Yugoslavia, a 1999 rebellion by Kosovo Albanians resulted in a bombing campaign by NATO and the occupation of the province by the UN. That year, the UN adopted the German mark as a replacement for the Serbian dinar. Use of the mark led directly to the imposition of the euro when the country declared independence in 2008. Yet, like East Timor, Kosovo remains in many ways a colony of the UN and various NGOs and international organizations. Because Kosovo hopes to join the EU one day, it has been using the euro rather than adopting the Albanian lek, the currency of its ethnically related neighbor.
Somaliland presents a more unique story. A large and sparsely populated country on the horn of Africa, Somaliland was initially colonized by the British. In 1960, after a few days of independence, it joined with Italian Somaliland to form modern-day Somalia. After years of misgovernment and a long running civil war, the territory decided to seek independence, which it declared in 1991. In 1994, Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal inaugurated a new currency, called the Somaliland shilling. The currency was briefly minted in England at the Pobjoy Mint, which prints money for 37 small countries and overseas territories. It doesn’t seem that the currency has been very successful, and it isn’t currently being minted.
Another breakaway republic, Western Sahara, was governed by its colonizer, Spain, until decolonization in 1975, when Morocco and Mauritania occupied the country.
The local independence movement briefly attempted to create its own currency called the Sahwari paseta, pegged to the old Spanish paseta.
Other countries have successfully established currencies. The post-Soviet states that gained independence in 1990 have mostly created their own currencies. Latvia, for instance, re-instituted the lats – once used in 1922 – to replace the ruble.
Perhaps it is interesting to look at Israeli history to see how a new currency can be created. The British invaded Palestine in 1917, but continued to use the Ottoman lira alongside the Egyptian pound until 1927.
In that year the Palestinian pound was introduced, and was pegged to the British pound. After independence, it took Israel four years to fully adopt the Israeli lira. By contrast, the Jordanians adopted the dinar in 1949. The Palestinian pound continued to circulate in the West Bank until 1950, when it was replaced by the Jordanian dinar, and in Gaza until 1951, when it was replaced by the Egyptian pound.
What do the Palestinians think they will use as a currency? On May 31, The Washington Post reported that there was some discussion about replacing the shekel, which is used in Gaza and the West Bank.
Jihad al-Wazir, governor of the Palestinian monetary authority, has noted that “all options are open.”
Some argue for bringing back the Palestinian pound. Others prefer a closer connection to the Jordanian dinar. One Palestinian woman with whom I spoke dismissed my confusion: “Won’t it be a Palestinian lira?”
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Interview with Alvin Rosenfled
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?ID=225867&R=R1
An interview with Alvin Rosenfeld,
Can we preserve the history, integrity of the Holocaust?
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
06/21/2011 00:07
The Holocaust is “exploited for political or commercial gain,” engineered to “suit popular tastes and made into award-winning entertainments.”
Talkbacks (7)
The Holocaust is under siege. It is “exploited for political or commercial gain.” It is engineered to “suit popular tastes and made into award-winning entertainments,” and it is “embattled in ugly disputes about comparative victimization” – vulgarized, trivialized, contextualized. While some want to compare it to the plight of unborn children (abortion), others want to compare it to what has befallen the Palestinians.
Prof. Alvin H. Rosenfeld has placed himself astride the path of this out-of-control destructive tendency, attempting – as he writes in his book The End of the Holocaust – to articulate the “changing perception of the Holocaust within contemporary culture,” Rosenfeld is well-placed, as chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington and director of the Indiana University Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, to set the record straight.
RELATED:
'Last Folio' exhibit is artists' act of remembrance
Holocaust exhibit vanishes again from Romanian subway
In an interview, he describes how this publication is a product of a lifetime of engagement with the subject.
“This book came from 40 years of reading Holocaust literature,” he says. “I’ve been writing on the subject for many years, but the deeper I go, the more I come to see a huge gap between how the Holocaust has been represented to the public in pop culture and other mass forms of dissemination, and what our best writers have said about it.”
Rosenfeld argues that many of these great writers, such as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel and Jean Amery, “came to a sense of futility about their own work and a sense of despair. What was at the feet of that desolate feeling? I became convinced that it had to do with their perception that the Holocaust was being misrepresented and misunderstood. I set out to analyze this discrepancy.”
Levi died in 1987, and Amery died in the 1970s.
A good portion of the distortions of the Holocaust came after their deaths, so in fact they were concerned about a different distortion, one they saw in their own lifetimes.
“In both of their cases, what troubled them most of all was the response in Germany and the return of anti-Semitism, especially on the political Left,” says Rosenfeld. “Both of them identified with the Left, and they were surprised by [anti-Semitism’s] return.”
Emblematic of how the Holocaust can be distorted was the Bitburg affair. President Ronald Reagan planned to visit Germany in 1985, and he decided to visit a military cemetery in Bitburg that commemorated German war dead. This brought to the fore what Rosenfeld describes as “an extraordinary tension in historical awareness [and] moral evaluation” in America. Why should a US president pay respects to German war dead and ignore the Holocaust on a visit to Germany? But was this just a phenomenon of 1985? After all, a consciousness of the Holocaust has not diminished, and belief that the German soldiers were victims of the war has not grown.
Rosenfeld feels strongly that this is not the case: “Within Germany itself, the sense of victimhood has been developing very strongly over the last decades. While Germans in the main do acknowledge the crimes of the period, more and more, there has been a tendency to see themselves as victims, both of Hitler and of the firebombing campaign [by the Allies]. Some have gone so far as to call that a bombing holocaust. Reagan, in characteristic American fashion, wanted to put the past behind, to ‘move forward’ as Americans say. Reagan saw Holocaust memory as interfering with that relationship.”
The End of the Holocaust critiques “the steady domestication of the Holocaust [that] will blunt the horrors of this history and, over time, render them less outrageous, and ultimately less knowable.”
Is there a way to both communicate the history of the Holocaust to a mass audience and preserve its integrity? The author agrees that it is a tough question.
“My suggestion is for people to read the very best writers and see the very best films,” he says in the interview. “Pop culture gives us versions of the Holocaust, but the versions are often not as strong as the better accounts we have. We need to reconnect the Holocaust to history; it becomes disconnected in mass media and mass entertainment. I set out to describe and analyze the problem, but I’m not wise enough to come up with a solution.”
The problem of mass culture and the Holocaust inevitably brings up the controversy of Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglourious Basterds, which presents a fictionalized account of Jewish avengers who kill Hitler. Rosenfeld doesn’t object to this extreme fictionalization, noting that “it’s entertainment.”
One of the quintessential books dealing with the Holocaust is the diary of Anne Frank. But few are aware that Frank’s legacy was altered, partly by her own father, Otto, as Rosenfeld writes, “to place a preponderant emphasis on hope, peace and the advancement of tolerance.”
Pop culture consumers seem to prefer hope-driven narratives, but perhaps a greater dose of reality is necessary.
“Americans are ready to face up, to a certain degree, to crimes of the past, but they don’t want to feel that they can’t get beyond them. But we are talking about genocidal crimes of mass murder. It is difficult to look at that and come out with messages that are hopeful,” he says. “Americans require hopeful endings. Those who create Holocaust productions know that and do what is necessary to end on an up note, rather than a down note.
Schindler’s List is a very powerful film that has done a great deal to educate about the Holocaust, and it ends in a Catholic cemetery with the sun shining.”
Another of Rosenfeld’s themes is that “for most people, a sense [of] the Nazi crimes against the Jews is formed less by the record of events established by professional historians than by individual stories and images.” However, at the same time, he recounts all the abuses to which the Holocaust has been subjected by certain revisionist scholars, such as Norman Finkelstein. There is thus a paradox-driven tension: While mass media do not convey the perfect image of the Holocaust, they may sometimes convey a much better message than the distortions it has undergone at the hands of Hannah Arendt, Finkelstein, Ward Churchill and a long list of intellectuals.
The author thinks the central problem is that “Holocaust studies has become embattled. There is the notion that those of us who teach courses on the Holocaust are too parochial, as if there is something illegitimate even to treat the Holocaust by itself. They argue that it should be seen in the wider framework of genocide studies and racism. I deal with some of that in the book in the chapter called ‘The End of the Holocaust’... There are scholars who are saying the Holocaust must be relativized, contextualized, universalized. If we can do that correctly, it is for the good, but we certainly have the right to understand it in its own terms.”
Where the book most excels is in recalling certain cases that are indicative of larger trends. One of the most egregious of these is the way Frank’s Jewishness was removed from certain productions of her diary “to the point of deracinating her.” Furthermore, in a German translation, all references to her German-Jewish origins and the Germans as persecutors were removed. Rosenfeld explains that these changes are “known among some scholars, but it is not widely known... The diary that this young girl wrote is an important document.”
How the Holocaust is transmitted to future generations is important. Rosenfeld notes that “one of the issues I dealt with [in my research was] Holocaust memory, and how it is distorted and vulgarized. I am keenly aware that we are living in a time of resurgent anti-Semitism. One of the writers covered in the book who I knew personally was Primo Levi. In his last book, in the conclusion, he wrote[that] ‘it happened, therefore it can happen again.’ I found those words haunting – not that I expect a second Holocaust to occur tomorrow, but one must be aware that it can happen again, and one way to have that happen is to undo its original happening.”
An interview with Alvin Rosenfeld,
Can we preserve the history, integrity of the Holocaust?
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
06/21/2011 00:07
The Holocaust is “exploited for political or commercial gain,” engineered to “suit popular tastes and made into award-winning entertainments.”
Talkbacks (7)
The Holocaust is under siege. It is “exploited for political or commercial gain.” It is engineered to “suit popular tastes and made into award-winning entertainments,” and it is “embattled in ugly disputes about comparative victimization” – vulgarized, trivialized, contextualized. While some want to compare it to the plight of unborn children (abortion), others want to compare it to what has befallen the Palestinians.
Prof. Alvin H. Rosenfeld has placed himself astride the path of this out-of-control destructive tendency, attempting – as he writes in his book The End of the Holocaust – to articulate the “changing perception of the Holocaust within contemporary culture,” Rosenfeld is well-placed, as chair of Jewish Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington and director of the Indiana University Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, to set the record straight.
RELATED:
'Last Folio' exhibit is artists' act of remembrance
Holocaust exhibit vanishes again from Romanian subway
In an interview, he describes how this publication is a product of a lifetime of engagement with the subject.
“This book came from 40 years of reading Holocaust literature,” he says. “I’ve been writing on the subject for many years, but the deeper I go, the more I come to see a huge gap between how the Holocaust has been represented to the public in pop culture and other mass forms of dissemination, and what our best writers have said about it.”
Rosenfeld argues that many of these great writers, such as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel and Jean Amery, “came to a sense of futility about their own work and a sense of despair. What was at the feet of that desolate feeling? I became convinced that it had to do with their perception that the Holocaust was being misrepresented and misunderstood. I set out to analyze this discrepancy.”
Levi died in 1987, and Amery died in the 1970s.
A good portion of the distortions of the Holocaust came after their deaths, so in fact they were concerned about a different distortion, one they saw in their own lifetimes.
“In both of their cases, what troubled them most of all was the response in Germany and the return of anti-Semitism, especially on the political Left,” says Rosenfeld. “Both of them identified with the Left, and they were surprised by [anti-Semitism’s] return.”
Emblematic of how the Holocaust can be distorted was the Bitburg affair. President Ronald Reagan planned to visit Germany in 1985, and he decided to visit a military cemetery in Bitburg that commemorated German war dead. This brought to the fore what Rosenfeld describes as “an extraordinary tension in historical awareness [and] moral evaluation” in America. Why should a US president pay respects to German war dead and ignore the Holocaust on a visit to Germany? But was this just a phenomenon of 1985? After all, a consciousness of the Holocaust has not diminished, and belief that the German soldiers were victims of the war has not grown.
Rosenfeld feels strongly that this is not the case: “Within Germany itself, the sense of victimhood has been developing very strongly over the last decades. While Germans in the main do acknowledge the crimes of the period, more and more, there has been a tendency to see themselves as victims, both of Hitler and of the firebombing campaign [by the Allies]. Some have gone so far as to call that a bombing holocaust. Reagan, in characteristic American fashion, wanted to put the past behind, to ‘move forward’ as Americans say. Reagan saw Holocaust memory as interfering with that relationship.”
The End of the Holocaust critiques “the steady domestication of the Holocaust [that] will blunt the horrors of this history and, over time, render them less outrageous, and ultimately less knowable.”
Is there a way to both communicate the history of the Holocaust to a mass audience and preserve its integrity? The author agrees that it is a tough question.
“My suggestion is for people to read the very best writers and see the very best films,” he says in the interview. “Pop culture gives us versions of the Holocaust, but the versions are often not as strong as the better accounts we have. We need to reconnect the Holocaust to history; it becomes disconnected in mass media and mass entertainment. I set out to describe and analyze the problem, but I’m not wise enough to come up with a solution.”
The problem of mass culture and the Holocaust inevitably brings up the controversy of Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglourious Basterds, which presents a fictionalized account of Jewish avengers who kill Hitler. Rosenfeld doesn’t object to this extreme fictionalization, noting that “it’s entertainment.”
One of the quintessential books dealing with the Holocaust is the diary of Anne Frank. But few are aware that Frank’s legacy was altered, partly by her own father, Otto, as Rosenfeld writes, “to place a preponderant emphasis on hope, peace and the advancement of tolerance.”
Pop culture consumers seem to prefer hope-driven narratives, but perhaps a greater dose of reality is necessary.
“Americans are ready to face up, to a certain degree, to crimes of the past, but they don’t want to feel that they can’t get beyond them. But we are talking about genocidal crimes of mass murder. It is difficult to look at that and come out with messages that are hopeful,” he says. “Americans require hopeful endings. Those who create Holocaust productions know that and do what is necessary to end on an up note, rather than a down note.
Schindler’s List is a very powerful film that has done a great deal to educate about the Holocaust, and it ends in a Catholic cemetery with the sun shining.”
Another of Rosenfeld’s themes is that “for most people, a sense [of] the Nazi crimes against the Jews is formed less by the record of events established by professional historians than by individual stories and images.” However, at the same time, he recounts all the abuses to which the Holocaust has been subjected by certain revisionist scholars, such as Norman Finkelstein. There is thus a paradox-driven tension: While mass media do not convey the perfect image of the Holocaust, they may sometimes convey a much better message than the distortions it has undergone at the hands of Hannah Arendt, Finkelstein, Ward Churchill and a long list of intellectuals.
The author thinks the central problem is that “Holocaust studies has become embattled. There is the notion that those of us who teach courses on the Holocaust are too parochial, as if there is something illegitimate even to treat the Holocaust by itself. They argue that it should be seen in the wider framework of genocide studies and racism. I deal with some of that in the book in the chapter called ‘The End of the Holocaust’... There are scholars who are saying the Holocaust must be relativized, contextualized, universalized. If we can do that correctly, it is for the good, but we certainly have the right to understand it in its own terms.”
Where the book most excels is in recalling certain cases that are indicative of larger trends. One of the most egregious of these is the way Frank’s Jewishness was removed from certain productions of her diary “to the point of deracinating her.” Furthermore, in a German translation, all references to her German-Jewish origins and the Germans as persecutors were removed. Rosenfeld explains that these changes are “known among some scholars, but it is not widely known... The diary that this young girl wrote is an important document.”
How the Holocaust is transmitted to future generations is important. Rosenfeld notes that “one of the issues I dealt with [in my research was] Holocaust memory, and how it is distorted and vulgarized. I am keenly aware that we are living in a time of resurgent anti-Semitism. One of the writers covered in the book who I knew personally was Primo Levi. In his last book, in the conclusion, he wrote[that] ‘it happened, therefore it can happen again.’ I found those words haunting – not that I expect a second Holocaust to occur tomorrow, but one must be aware that it can happen again, and one way to have that happen is to undo its original happening.”
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Terra Incognita Europe Re-discovers its borders
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=221027
Terra Incognita: Europe rediscovers its borders
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
05/17/2011 22:47
The mass of people making their way to EU countries as a result of the Arab Spring has tested the wisdom of the EU’s Schengen Agreement.
Every once in a while, people rediscover something they previously knew. The greatest symbol of this phenomenon was Raphael’s fresco The School of Athens, completed in 1511, which showcased how Renaissance Europe was breathing new life into Greek philosophy. But one might also look to Columbus’s “discovery” of America. Not only had it obviously already been discovered by people crossing a land-bridge from Asia, but there is compelling evidence that the Vikings even had a colony at Newfoundland in the 11th century.
Now it seems Europe is rediscovering its borders after 25 years. In 1985, on the Moselle riverboat Princess Marie-Astrid, five European countries signed the Schengen Agreement. Under its conditions, West Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands would abolish passport checks in favor of visual surveillance at border crossings. The Schengen Area was incorporated into the main body of European Union laws, known as the acquis communautaire, in 1997. This meant that all EU member states would be bound by these conventions, which basically abolished many functions associated with borders. New EU member states must implement the convention, that calls for free movement of goods and people.
There are several exceptions. Norway and Iceland are not part of the EU, but are signatories to the Schengen agreement. England and Ireland, both of which are part of the EU, have an opt-out right under the Schengen agreement, which means they maintain the right to determine who enters their countries from other EU states. By 2008, 25 states had eliminated their internal borders. Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007, are still in the process of implementing the Schengen agreement. All countries have the right, under Article 2.2 of the treaty, to temporarily suspend the agreement, usually for less than 30 days, if they feel their national security is threatened. France re-imposed some restrictions in the wake of the 2005 bombing attacks in London. Several countries have imposed border checks due to large sporting events like the World Cup, apparently to interdict soccer hooligans.
Problems with Schengen have begun to wear on those states that have embraced it. The UK and Ireland have complained that workers from Eastern European EU countries have exploited the agreement to move in, take over jobs and get benefits. In one comment on a travel website named vegabondjourney.com in 2010, a man wrote: “come in to uk thay [sic] let every polish person in even if thay carnt [sic] speak english, any one can claim benifits [sic] so why not everyone.”
The problem with Schengen is that it applies to all members of the EU, but each country still has the ability to grant residency, citizenship and refugee/asylum status to individuals without consulting the other countries. This means that a person obtaining asylum in one country may end up as a burden on another. Many of those wishing to immigrate or work in Europe come from Africa and the Middle East, and usually attempt to cross into Europe via Greece or Italy. Their intention is to get through the border controls that these “front line” states have in place and, once in Europe, exploit the open borders to move where they want. This means that all the internal European countries must rely on the efficiency and zealousness of Italians and Greeks – qualities for which neither country is particularly known – to safeguard their immigration laws.
The flood of refugees from North Africa in the aftermath of the revolution in Tunisia and the rebellion in Libya has put huge strains on the agreement. In February, the Hungarian president of the EU summoned the interior ministers of several member countries to “look at ways of preventing Arab refugees from flooding Europe. They acknowledged that this is not only a problem for member states in Southern Europe, but also for the entire EU,” according to a report on europa-nu.nl.
In April, Italy granted around 20,000 Tunisians temporary residency permits. Prior to this, the 20,000, almost all men, had been the responsibility of Italy’s border police, who were forced to house them on Italian islands to which they had fled. But the day after the men received EU permits, they began moving to Tunisia’s former colonial ruler, France, where some had family ties.
In response, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office declared that “the governance of Schengen is failing. It seems there is a need to reflect on a mechanism that will allow a temporary suspension of the agreement, in case of a systemic failure of an external (EU) border..., to intervene through a provisional suspension, until such time as the weakness is corrected.”
France saw itself being invaded by unemployed men, some of whom began living in parks in Paris and elsewhere. Sarkozy initially attempted to close the Italian border to the Tunisians, but under pressure from human rights groups and warnings from the EU, he opened it again. Now Denmark has gone further than France, re-imposing checkpoints and customs at its land border with Germany and the bridge that links it to Sweden. Fifteen other EU member states support curtailing the most liberal policies of Schengen.
Andrei Fedyashin of the newspaper RIA Novosti commented that “it appears that Europe has succumbed to good old xenophobia.”
A May 14 headline at the Independent screamed, “Europe is in danger of eroding one of its greatest achievements,” and the editorial claimed that “making it easier for EU member states to close their borders is the worst possible response.”
Yet the Schengen agreement itself was, in a sense, xenophobic. It was initially signed by countries with a common history (Rome, Charlemagne), political system (democracy), economic status (wealthy) and religion (Christianity) – before the advent of mass African and Middle Eastern immigration. Right-wing and Euroskeptic parties such as Finland’s True Finns and the Freedom Party in The Netherlands are demanding that illegal immigrants and legal asylum-seekers not be allowed to overrun their countries. They are right; large numbers of immigrants place a disproportionate burden on small countries, eroding their cultural norms.
Europe is rediscovering its borders, and in doing so, it is realizing that common sense demands that a country not rely on its neighbors to guarantee its security or culture.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Terra Incognita: Europe rediscovers its borders
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
05/17/2011 22:47
The mass of people making their way to EU countries as a result of the Arab Spring has tested the wisdom of the EU’s Schengen Agreement.
Every once in a while, people rediscover something they previously knew. The greatest symbol of this phenomenon was Raphael’s fresco The School of Athens, completed in 1511, which showcased how Renaissance Europe was breathing new life into Greek philosophy. But one might also look to Columbus’s “discovery” of America. Not only had it obviously already been discovered by people crossing a land-bridge from Asia, but there is compelling evidence that the Vikings even had a colony at Newfoundland in the 11th century.
Now it seems Europe is rediscovering its borders after 25 years. In 1985, on the Moselle riverboat Princess Marie-Astrid, five European countries signed the Schengen Agreement. Under its conditions, West Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands would abolish passport checks in favor of visual surveillance at border crossings. The Schengen Area was incorporated into the main body of European Union laws, known as the acquis communautaire, in 1997. This meant that all EU member states would be bound by these conventions, which basically abolished many functions associated with borders. New EU member states must implement the convention, that calls for free movement of goods and people.
There are several exceptions. Norway and Iceland are not part of the EU, but are signatories to the Schengen agreement. England and Ireland, both of which are part of the EU, have an opt-out right under the Schengen agreement, which means they maintain the right to determine who enters their countries from other EU states. By 2008, 25 states had eliminated their internal borders. Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007, are still in the process of implementing the Schengen agreement. All countries have the right, under Article 2.2 of the treaty, to temporarily suspend the agreement, usually for less than 30 days, if they feel their national security is threatened. France re-imposed some restrictions in the wake of the 2005 bombing attacks in London. Several countries have imposed border checks due to large sporting events like the World Cup, apparently to interdict soccer hooligans.
Problems with Schengen have begun to wear on those states that have embraced it. The UK and Ireland have complained that workers from Eastern European EU countries have exploited the agreement to move in, take over jobs and get benefits. In one comment on a travel website named vegabondjourney.com in 2010, a man wrote: “come in to uk thay [sic] let every polish person in even if thay carnt [sic] speak english, any one can claim benifits [sic] so why not everyone.”
The problem with Schengen is that it applies to all members of the EU, but each country still has the ability to grant residency, citizenship and refugee/asylum status to individuals without consulting the other countries. This means that a person obtaining asylum in one country may end up as a burden on another. Many of those wishing to immigrate or work in Europe come from Africa and the Middle East, and usually attempt to cross into Europe via Greece or Italy. Their intention is to get through the border controls that these “front line” states have in place and, once in Europe, exploit the open borders to move where they want. This means that all the internal European countries must rely on the efficiency and zealousness of Italians and Greeks – qualities for which neither country is particularly known – to safeguard their immigration laws.
The flood of refugees from North Africa in the aftermath of the revolution in Tunisia and the rebellion in Libya has put huge strains on the agreement. In February, the Hungarian president of the EU summoned the interior ministers of several member countries to “look at ways of preventing Arab refugees from flooding Europe. They acknowledged that this is not only a problem for member states in Southern Europe, but also for the entire EU,” according to a report on europa-nu.nl.
In April, Italy granted around 20,000 Tunisians temporary residency permits. Prior to this, the 20,000, almost all men, had been the responsibility of Italy’s border police, who were forced to house them on Italian islands to which they had fled. But the day after the men received EU permits, they began moving to Tunisia’s former colonial ruler, France, where some had family ties.
In response, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office declared that “the governance of Schengen is failing. It seems there is a need to reflect on a mechanism that will allow a temporary suspension of the agreement, in case of a systemic failure of an external (EU) border..., to intervene through a provisional suspension, until such time as the weakness is corrected.”
France saw itself being invaded by unemployed men, some of whom began living in parks in Paris and elsewhere. Sarkozy initially attempted to close the Italian border to the Tunisians, but under pressure from human rights groups and warnings from the EU, he opened it again. Now Denmark has gone further than France, re-imposing checkpoints and customs at its land border with Germany and the bridge that links it to Sweden. Fifteen other EU member states support curtailing the most liberal policies of Schengen.
Andrei Fedyashin of the newspaper RIA Novosti commented that “it appears that Europe has succumbed to good old xenophobia.”
A May 14 headline at the Independent screamed, “Europe is in danger of eroding one of its greatest achievements,” and the editorial claimed that “making it easier for EU member states to close their borders is the worst possible response.”
Yet the Schengen agreement itself was, in a sense, xenophobic. It was initially signed by countries with a common history (Rome, Charlemagne), political system (democracy), economic status (wealthy) and religion (Christianity) – before the advent of mass African and Middle Eastern immigration. Right-wing and Euroskeptic parties such as Finland’s True Finns and the Freedom Party in The Netherlands are demanding that illegal immigrants and legal asylum-seekers not be allowed to overrun their countries. They are right; large numbers of immigrants place a disproportionate burden on small countries, eroding their cultural norms.
Europe is rediscovering its borders, and in doing so, it is realizing that common sense demands that a country not rely on its neighbors to guarantee its security or culture.
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University, and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
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