Hadar: Israel Council for Civic Action
Wednesday night we drove to Jerusalem to attend the inaugural meeting of a new organization called Hadar: Israel council for civic action. This is an English-speaking non-partisan committee set up by a group of like-minded Zionist immigrants from English-speaking countries, mainly the US and Britain (Hadar means glory or greatness in Hebrew).
Hadar was formed to fill what we considered a vacuum, namely the lack of an organization that represents the 300,000 or so English-speaking immigrants in Israel and to give them a voice. As a group we are acknowledged in Israel as having an almost unique degree of civic involvement and awareness, which we bring from our mother countries. Yet since we are neither homogenous in country of origin nor religion we lack the kind of numbers and impact that some other groups such as Russians and Arabs, tend to have in Israeli society.
The meeting was held at the Begin Center and was a resounding success. This was helped by two things, first the involvement of several well known speakers, including Dep. FM Danny Ayalon, former Israeli Amb. to the UN Dore Gold, and former legal advisor to the PM and FM Alan Baker, and was emceed by Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, former Features Editor of the J'sam Post. On the anniversary of the UN partition plan of 1948, the ostensible topic facing the panelists was "would the UN accept Israel today?"
Also, the J'sam Post had an article on the group and the meeting on it's front page on Tuesday, that attracted a lot of interest. But, finally, the number of people who attended, around 500, including an overflow hall, and several hundred who had to be turned away, constituted the evidence of the need and the potential of this organization.
The speakers were excellent, Danny Ayalon emphasized that although there have been differences with the Obama Administration, the US is highly supportive of Israel at the UN. It was impossible to prevent the Goldstone Report resolution from passing, he quipped that if Saudi Arabi wanted to pass a resolution that the earth is flat, it would have an automatic majority of Arab, Muslim and so-called non-aligned countries. Nevertheless with a lot of lobbying the US and Israel managed to persuade 78 countries to either vote against or abstain, and this was quite an accomplishment. In all communications he emphasizes that Israel was re-founded in 1948, since it existed in the same location long before the Arabs came to the area.
Dore Gold spoke abut the de-legimization of Israel by the Arabs. He pointed out that there have been several phases in the anti-Israel strategies of the Arabs, the first was outright military attacks, then they tried an economic boycott, followed by terrorism, and now they are trying de-legitimization. None of the others worked and we must make sure this doesn't work either. He traced the origin of the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian State to 1988 by Arafat in Tunis, then to the Olso Accords that were supposed to end in 1999. From that time the Palestinians have been trying to downplay the Jewish historical presence in the area, now denying that any Jewish Temple existed in Jerusalem, against overwhelming factual evidence. The latest phase is to try to delegitimize the IDF by claiming it carries out war crimes, etc. and the Goldstone Report is one aspect of this. One thing that disturbs him is that while UN resolution 242 was the basis for all peace processes in the area, Pres,. Obama in several speeches on the subject has failed to mention UN 242 once. Is this an ominous sign?
Alan Baker agreed with the two others that the UN as currently constituted would not approve the entry of Israel as a member, but then he asked if Israel would want to join such a body. He discussed the issue of "universal justification" for arrest in other countries, notably Britain, Switzerland and Spain. He suggested that the only legal remedy for Israeli leaders and IDF officers to avoid arrest in such countries was for the Israeli Government to hold a legally-binding investigation of its own of Operation Cast Lead. But, others disagreed, saying that the enemies of Israel would never accept the results of such an investigation anyway. He suggested that the kind of aggressive legal action that is happening in the US against Iranian funding of American universities was the way to go.
So Hadar was launched amid a great flourish, it is now a legal non-profit organization, and hopefully will represent the Anglo voice in Israel on such subjects as electoral reform, the environment, education and all forms of public advocacy.
Hadar was formed to fill what we considered a vacuum, namely the lack of an organization that represents the 300,000 or so English-speaking immigrants in Israel and to give them a voice. As a group we are acknowledged in Israel as having an almost unique degree of civic involvement and awareness, which we bring from our mother countries. Yet since we are neither homogenous in country of origin nor religion we lack the kind of numbers and impact that some other groups such as Russians and Arabs, tend to have in Israeli society.
The meeting was held at the Begin Center and was a resounding success. This was helped by two things, first the involvement of several well known speakers, including Dep. FM Danny Ayalon, former Israeli Amb. to the UN Dore Gold, and former legal advisor to the PM and FM Alan Baker, and was emceed by Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, former Features Editor of the J'sam Post. On the anniversary of the UN partition plan of 1948, the ostensible topic facing the panelists was "would the UN accept Israel today?"
Also, the J'sam Post had an article on the group and the meeting on it's front page on Tuesday, that attracted a lot of interest. But, finally, the number of people who attended, around 500, including an overflow hall, and several hundred who had to be turned away, constituted the evidence of the need and the potential of this organization.
The speakers were excellent, Danny Ayalon emphasized that although there have been differences with the Obama Administration, the US is highly supportive of Israel at the UN. It was impossible to prevent the Goldstone Report resolution from passing, he quipped that if Saudi Arabi wanted to pass a resolution that the earth is flat, it would have an automatic majority of Arab, Muslim and so-called non-aligned countries. Nevertheless with a lot of lobbying the US and Israel managed to persuade 78 countries to either vote against or abstain, and this was quite an accomplishment. In all communications he emphasizes that Israel was re-founded in 1948, since it existed in the same location long before the Arabs came to the area.
Dore Gold spoke abut the de-legimization of Israel by the Arabs. He pointed out that there have been several phases in the anti-Israel strategies of the Arabs, the first was outright military attacks, then they tried an economic boycott, followed by terrorism, and now they are trying de-legitimization. None of the others worked and we must make sure this doesn't work either. He traced the origin of the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian State to 1988 by Arafat in Tunis, then to the Olso Accords that were supposed to end in 1999. From that time the Palestinians have been trying to downplay the Jewish historical presence in the area, now denying that any Jewish Temple existed in Jerusalem, against overwhelming factual evidence. The latest phase is to try to delegitimize the IDF by claiming it carries out war crimes, etc. and the Goldstone Report is one aspect of this. One thing that disturbs him is that while UN resolution 242 was the basis for all peace processes in the area, Pres,. Obama in several speeches on the subject has failed to mention UN 242 once. Is this an ominous sign?
Alan Baker agreed with the two others that the UN as currently constituted would not approve the entry of Israel as a member, but then he asked if Israel would want to join such a body. He discussed the issue of "universal justification" for arrest in other countries, notably Britain, Switzerland and Spain. He suggested that the only legal remedy for Israeli leaders and IDF officers to avoid arrest in such countries was for the Israeli Government to hold a legally-binding investigation of its own of Operation Cast Lead. But, others disagreed, saying that the enemies of Israel would never accept the results of such an investigation anyway. He suggested that the kind of aggressive legal action that is happening in the US against Iranian funding of American universities was the way to go.
So Hadar was launched amid a great flourish, it is now a legal non-profit organization, and hopefully will represent the Anglo voice in Israel on such subjects as electoral reform, the environment, education and all forms of public advocacy.
posted by Jack Cohen at 3:18 PM
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