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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review July 28, 2003 / 28 Tamuz, 5763

An ugly idea whose time has come

By Hillel Halkin


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http://www.jewishworldreview.com | I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't been to see The Fence yet. Now that it has become a tourist attraction, with busloads of American Jewish leaders being taken to see it go up, one might think that an ordinary Israeli would want to have a look at it too.


But I don't, not really. It's an ugly idea — a fence several meters high and several hundred kilometers long that cuts our country in two — and it has to be an even uglier sight. Had I been a tourist in Berlin in the old days, I'm sure I wouldn't have wanted to miss the Wall, but I can easily imagine that Berliners felt differently.


There's not much to like about fences. They tell you that you're poorer than you thought. Try running into one when you're on a hike in open country. There you are, with the hills and fields all around you, the sky overhead, the earth beneath your feet — it's all yours — and suddenly there's this nasty bit of wire saying, "Stop! You're mistaken. Just who do you think you are?"


We're Jews in the land of Israel, that's who we are. And we'll be less so with a monster fence running through it.

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It will diminish us all, The Fence; Israelis and Palestinians alike. It will tear the land apart. It will prevent normal travel, commerce, and relations. It is a desperate measure, a last resort, and the question is whether it makes any sense.


There are two different scenarios in which it does make sense.


The first involves never finishing it and never using it. The logic behind this is the logic of the old Roman saying: "If you want peace, prepare for war." Just as only an enemy who knows that you're ready and able to fight understands that he shouldn't provoke you, so, it can be claimed, only when the Palestinians know that we have the means to live apart from them will they realize that they mustn't encourage us to do so. The Fence is a threat, a way of saying: "Look, we may like the idea of fences no better than you do, but if you can't offer us acceptable terms, you need to realize that we have an alternative. We'd rather find a way of living together rather than retreating to a barrier. But time and our patience are running out. The Fence is there, it's going up, we can finish it in a few months and get behind it and be reasonably safe from any harm you can do to us - and now make up your minds: Is this what you want?"


It is of course what the Palestinians do not want. The Fence will be a disaster for them, far more than it will be for us. It will cut them off from the Israeli economy and job market, which are their best hope for economic development and capital accumulation. It will cut them off from contact with Israeli society, which is their most promising chance for modernization and democratization. It will cut them off from their own kin, the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. And it will cut them off from the greater part of Palestine, which is now Israel and for which they profess to long.


The prospect of an Israeli redeployment behind The Fence is a powerful reason for the Palestinians to make concessions that will prevent this from happening - more powerful than all the battalions and brigades that can be thrown into Nablus or Jenin. It's why we need to go on building it at full speed, even if our ultimate goal is to tear it down again.


THE SECOND scenario in which The Fence would make sense is the opposite of the first. It is one in which we do not want to live together with the Palestinians at all, but rather to be separated as much as possible from them and the Arab world, if not permanently and forever, at least for a very long time — as long, say, as East Germany was separated from West Germany between 1948 and 1990, or perhaps even as China was separated from the Mongols for hundred of years after the building of the Great Wall.


There is little doubt that most Israelis today feel this way. After three years of Palestinian violence, the prevalent attitude among Jews in this country is that the less Palestinians have to be seen, heard from and dealt with, the better. No wall that keeps them out can be too high, no obstacle too thick. Let's draw a curtain on the Arab world, turn our backs to it, and face across the sea to Europe and the West: Put that in a petition and you could get a million signatures in a month.


There is something to be said for this. The Middle East has not, in the 125 years since Zionist settlers first tried striking roots in it, been very hospitable to us. It continues to be one of the most backward regions of the world, ruled by despotic regimes and fundamentalist clerics. We Jews, on the other hand, have been, for the past century and a half, at the cutting edge of Western civilization. Backs to the Arab world and faces to the West seems a natural posture for us — at least until that world undergoes basic changes that are not in the offing right now.


And yet think of the price, the diminishment.


The real question we now have to answer — that we have not answered since 1967 — as prepared or unprepared for answering it as we may be, is quite simply this: Do we, assuming a degree of choice exists, want to live with the Palestinians in a Land of Israel or Palestine that is open to us all, or do we want to live without them and in only part of it?


Curiously, as I have said, the immediate logic of both a "yes" and a "no" answer to this question is the same: Get on with The Fence, as awful and ugly as it is, and go on building it as fast as possible. Only as it nears completion will we and the Palestinians have to decide. But the decision, when it comes, will be radical and drastic. Both sides had better start thinking, as hard and deeply as we can, about its implications right now.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Hillel Halkin is an Israel-based translator and author, most recently of Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel." (Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.

02/21/03: The immorality of losing
12/17/02: You don't have to be Orthodox to cherish the Sabbath



© 2003, Hillel Halkin