Author Shlomi Harif – Home

In the 1950’s a rapist sowed fear and terror in the streets of Tel Aviv. Panicked citizens demanded government action, and a curfew on women after dark was seen as a reasonable action. Golda Meyer’s response: put a curfew on the men: they’re the ones doing the raping!

It’s clear the UltraOrthodox are not capable of restraining themselves and behaving like law-abiding citizens.

And the police? They’re talking about route changes for the parade. If the Palestinians were doing the rock throwing and garbage burning there’d be dozens of fatalities by now, and Mea She’arim would be under a curfew, with Border Police patroling every nook and cranny.

If a decision needs to be made as to which citizens should be able to exercise their rights to freedom of assembly and speech, the Gay Pride Parade wins hands-down. Start a curfew now on all UltraOrthodox Jews in Jerusalem, and keep it in place until after candle lighting on Friday night. They’re easy to spot. If they show up for the parade and are legitimate in their protests, great! If not, toss ’em in the clink; see if they like spending “shabbos” in jail, treated no better and no worse than the rest of the miscreants de joir.

I guess they prefer Pulsa De’Nura to Dina D’malchute Dina. Busha Ve’cherpa on them, creating Mar’at Ayin on the whole of the Jewish People, people from whom they work so hard to distance themselves.

The ultra-Orthodox won’t help Agunot with relief against husband’s that won’t divorce them, even if it involves insane government expenditures and actions. But they’re more than happy to order their blind faithful into the street to protest a gay rights parade. On one hand they tell them to protest peacefully, at the same time whipping up their fury while decrying their inability too keep said faithful from carrying out acts of violence. And then, just to make sure the pot is well stirred, they announce an official ‘death curse’ (Pulse De’Nura, or whips of fire) against the gay pride day organizers.

Yes, there are rational voices speaking in calm tones, even hopeful ones. But it’s the lunatic fringe, as always, that carries the day in Israeli politics and in how the world perceives us.

In a time where achdut and shalvah should be the tone, to bring together even segments of society that have little or nothing in common, for the good of the nation, our religious intolerants have little to add other than fuel to a fire already burning too brightly. The spider webs of hate have no Temple to which to attach; the strands wrap around each community, each philosophy, and will consume each and every one unless we learn to better clear our minds and our hearts.

Apparently Gallaudet’s incoming president wasn’t “deaf enough” to lead this once-prestigious school for the differently-hearing.

We complain about leadership: good, bad and indifferent. Leaders must be passionate about the cause, but not necessarily of the cause. Sure, it would be great to find a homeless refugee to run the Red Cross; they’d have the real life experience necessary to understand what such people need. MDA? Ditto. Should a blind person be the only qualified president for a school for the blind?

The very nature of the cantankerous debate at Gallaudet shows that, among the deaf, there are different views on the subject of deafness. My cousin wears a cochlear implant, signs and is “mainstream.” Where I work there are some deaf employees that don’t — won’t — speak, but sign instead.

If the students at Gallaudet want to stay in their cave, create a sub-species called “homo sapiens can’t hear the oncoming trafficus” that’s fine. But that institution belongs to all hearing-impaired individuals, not just to ASL bigots.

Adeed Dawisha spoke about partition on NPR. I don’t think he goes far enough; like most ‘faces,’ he’s thinking 1-3 years instead of the unfair, ugly realities of Iraq. Still and all, brave of him to talk about partition.

As conditions in Iraq worsten, and “stay the course” suddenly never meant what it said (how can four words, four syllables, mean something other than that?), it’s time to look at real ways out. As someone who has spent considerable time dealing with the clash of cultures, I’m going to do a Jonathan Swift and modestly propose the following (not new) idea: Divide to Conquer.

Splitting Iraq into sectarian sections is both a hard and easy thing to do. But with a little thought, and consideration of consequences, it is doable.

Who Gets the Loot?
There are six partners in this land grab, each with a stake:

1. The people of Iraq get the thing they need most: stability, security and no further ties to Western governmental control
2. Iran gets Eastern Iraq, from the south, including the swamps, up through to the Bagdhad area. Lots of oil, lots of Shi’ites.
3. Here’s the tough one: the Kurds get their own state consisting of Northern Iraq, up to the Turkish border. Yes, this has lots of implications, eeach with their problems. They get oil, but a land-locked dependence on their neighbors. See discussion below.
4. Syria’s piece of the pie is an odd slice. Below the Kurdish area, but above where Jordan gets their slice.
5. Jordan? They get the southwestern portions of Iraq, bordering Saudi Arabia and what would be Iran. This would serve as a neutral buffer between the radical Islamic empires, and provide Jordan with much-needed leverage in the Middle East: access to oil.
6. The US and the EU have huge stakes in a stable Middle East. Rather than have areas under rule of chaos, this split would ensure that each stakeholder had something to gain by ensuring stability — and a lot to lose by failing in that mission.

Iraqis
Okay, let’s face it: there never was a true Iraq. The Brits did a bang-up job on screwing up land ownership after they conquered the Ottoman Empire, and we are still living the results of their bungling from India to Iraq to Israel. The sun has finally set on the British Empire, but the fires are still burning.

The “Iraqi people” are no more homogeneous than the Palestinians or Israelis. While the latter were nominally bound closer together than the Palestinians ever have been, it’s safe to say that the Israelis of today are so diverse they could not now do what they did in 1948.

Aaanyway, they deserve the peace and stability that comes from living among their co-religionists and clans. Let ’em live apart if they can’t live together.

Iran
Sometimes you should give a coveter what they want. Add some more oil, and a few million more civilians, and many hundred square miles, and you get a distraction that should keep the Iranians busy for at least a few years. And who wants to have militant armies under someone else’s control? Let the Mahdi armies learn who the real top dogs are.

Kurds
The favorite Arab punching bags, after Israelis, these folks already have experience running their own land. Upside: pretty instant stable tribal government. Downside: country envy from Turkish Kurds. Solution: Give Turks EU membership under the stipulation they leave the Kurds alone. This might not be stable in the 10-15 year time frame, but if Turkey manages to up its standard of living and provide real economic and social development opportunities for its large Kurdish minority, they can come up ahead in this delicate game. But they’ll need to grow up (and get some help from Western countries) in getting over their Kurdistan fetish.

Syria
My favorite next enemy. This has the downside of giving Hizb’allah a direct land connection from Iran, but it gives the Syrians a new export: oil. I expect it will have the salubrious effect of making Syria less interested in the religious politics and strings that current relationships with Iran bring along with weapons. Syria is a pragmatic dictatorship, and religious messes with that paradigm. As there aren’t any large populations in that area, they’re able to expand eastward without large local problems. Of course, they can always pull another Hama.

Jordan
The only rational government in the Middle East, it still is the last hope for stable government. At least, unless the US decides to “help” them out. Giving them oil would be a huge blessing. They have a seaport, a relatively effective government, good relationships with almost all countries in the area, a roughly British, Western court system and a good track record of education and economic development. They need the oil more than any other (remaining) nation except Israel.

US & EU
These countries need to “get out of Dodge.” Any meddling, any interference, will be punished, no matter how well the actions are intended. Americans hand out candy? Kill the kids for collaboration. Brits give the Iraqi army a free hand? They’re at fault for Iraqi-inspired atrocities.

Loose Threads
No, it’s not that simple. And yes, it’s unfair: so is life. Bad people may win, and good people might lose on the micro basis. But in the macro, this is a more stable solution than the status quo or any delusional “free and democratic state” that Cheney, Bush, Inc. might conceive in their K Street back offices.

Baghdad
Let’s start with the ugly, 800-pound oliphant. All the Arab states are so hip about Jerusalem being an international city, let ’em practice on Baghdad. Multinational force, a place for the meeting of minds and common area interests. Set up parks, cultural museums, safe havens for families to come to and not worry about their stressful lives back in their (new) homes. A regional stock exchange. A duty-free trading zone. Think Qatar, only with a San Antonio river walk.

The Great Migration
Yes, people will have their lives uprooted and ruined. That’s already happening. Barbers are killed for violating Islamic law by cutting hair one way — or the other. Shi’a and Sunni bullies are already performing the very act of Transfer they Israeli’s forbidden from doing. And getting an organized transfer will shed less blood than what’s happening now. (Now children! Keep your hands and AK-47s to yourselves!)

How Could we do this? Especially after Everything We’ve Invested!
Just watch. The dead can’t complain. The wounded won’t be back. The money’s gone to graft, mud and corporate America. Partition neatly gets around the Republican agenda of getting out of Iraq with a resolution (victory having been declared as a premature statement). Dems will love the amount of real humanitarian aid that can now be funneled to build a new country (Kurdistan) as well as help create an oasis out of Baghdad’s ruins.

What’s next?
I don’t know. Call your congressman/parlimentarian. Organize. Start thinking about how the details could be worked out. There’s a Nobel Peace Prize in it for whomever can turn this bloodbath around.

I’m always looking out for a good tool to help in writing or mapping ideas. MindJet’s MindManager is brilliant, if expensive for individuals, and not available on-line. PBWiki makes great tools for sharing ideas on-line. Google is helping me move a lot of my writing to the web by letting me move documents onto a universal desktop space. (To say nothing of Google Search itself, but I’m a bit biased towards that company.)

I’m hunting for the perfect — or at least, usable — idea mapping software. An acquaintance suggested Wridea. I checked it out and, sadly, have to say it takes writers back a notch in terms of usability. The fact that the software is affiliated with a mail list management company (read all those wonderful e-mails you don’t want to receive) makes me leery of their motives in getting e-mail addresses from users and those with whom they share their idea maps. (Sorry, guys: smoke, fire, and all that jazz.)

If anyone has a better site for idea or story mapping, please let me know: comments always read.

Indictments pending on the President… and shuddering at seeing him greeting happy children and families in the Presidential Sukkah. At least he had the decency not to show up for the opening of the Knesset. This is a boil that must be lanced quickly, lest it spread the stench of corruption even further than already know.

Katzav: resign already!

Education is a complex business. It’s complex because, to run a school district, a superintendent (CEO) or school board member (corporate board member) must know how to manage people, budgets, priorities, politics, bureaucracies and a community often at odds with itself in terms of needs, desires and purpose.

So it’s fun to hear about people interested in running local or state school districts who clearly have not had their meds properly balanced. Like the genius who wants students to learn to stop bullets with textbooks. Or school boards that want to put religion in, and not worry about the intricacies of church and state – or basic literacy as an important part of the learning experience. The latter helped found an amazing new religion, based on the same sane, solid principles as that of Intelligent Design: please read their dogma or join.

In real life, people with sane, common sense give suggestions to leaders. In our wonderful Amerikan world, people with about as much sense as rutabaga make pronouncements in the hoped they are better liked.

We would be best served by asking future politicos — and especially school board members and superintendents — to prove their sanity.

Me: That’s so stupid!
Him: What?
Me: This professor said compared Bush to Hitler.
Him: That’s so stupid! Hitler was smart! Hitler was evil!
Me: (reaching for the keyboard…)

A president, former chief of staff and multiple ministers all under various stages of investigation. Allegations of misuse of power from the banally sexual to the incompetent.

What separates Israel, with its multitude of problems and absurd social and economic issues from the United States is that all these horrible, awful, disgusting and bizarre things are reported by a press despite attempts to cover up. And that the Israeli constituency, unlike Americans, are numb and depressed, instead of being indignant and repressed, over their leaders’ peccadilloes.

Having a free and powerful press is of no use if the readership has already lost the ability to be shocked or dismayed. Maybe a little American prudery would be handy about now…