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3 June, 2010 | Fight Terrorism - support Israel

obtained of an interview that was to be broadcast

Gaza flotilla: What should Wednesday evening on the Charlie Rose show on
Bloomberg TV.

Obama do? | Michael “‘It’s legitimate for Israel to say, “I don’t know what’s on
that ship. These guys are dropping eight – 3,000 rockets
Tomasky on my people,”‘ Biden said.”

Jun 3, 2010 02:00PM The current administration has a very different Middle East policy
from its predecessor. But there is one constant, like it or not. The
United States is not going to denounce Israel’s actions in starkly
It is tempting to say the US should express furious moral outrage
moral terms. That just isn’t its role.
over Israel’s raid of the Gaza flotilla – but that is not its role
What is? Keeping the recently started proximity talks going, and
What should the United States be doing in response to Israel’s
retaining the credibility to try to push both parties (we should
flotilla raid? It’s tempting to say that it should be expressing furious
really say all three parties, since Fatah and Hamas are so
moral outrage. If it can’t express outrage at Israel over this, then
dramatically divergent now) toward more reasonable positions.
when will it, Arabs and others might ask. It’s a fair question.
On the first point, so far so good. Despite all the incendiary rhetoric
The Obama administration certainly pays a price for not doing that
flying around, the talks are continuing. Mahmoud Abbas met with
– with Turkey particularly in this instance, since (at least) four
George Mitchell yesterday, and Netanyahu will see him today.
citizens of this also-crucial ally were slain by the IDF, and across
Abbas will be in Washington next week, and all signs are that
the region more generally. I’d have little doubt that from Istanbul
Netanyahu will soon reschedule the visit with Obama that he
and Damascus and Riyadh and Hezbollah’s south Lebanon
cancelled in the wake of the raid.
stronghold, Obama appears weak and unfair.
On the second point, well, as usual, who knows. The administration
And it’s not just that the administration has lacked outrage. Let’s
has now, as of this morning, stepped out more publicly (albeit on
be plain. It has defended Israel in ways no other country would
background in the New York Times) as saying that the blockade has
right now. At the UN security council, the US blocked a forceful
to end. As Martin Indyk notes in this Time magazine column, the
anti-Israel resolution and shepherded the passage of one that
first order of business here for Obama, Mitchell and Hillary Clinton
ambiguously condemned the “acts” (by unidentified parties) that
would be to try and strike a deal to make that happen: lifting the
led to the nine deaths. Even this wasn’t really enough by the
siege in return for agreed-upon inspection regimes and the release
standards of powerful American Jewish interest groups. The Jewish
of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. It just might be (emphasis on
Telegraphic Agency, always worth reading during times like this,
might) that the flotilla incident, so widely questioned and
reported yesterday that Aipac and other groups were pushing for a
denounced within Israel, has perversely given new life to that
more pro-Israel line from the administration (“Groups want
possibility.
stronger US defense of Israel, Obama not obliging,” ran the
headline). The piece also quoted Elliott Abrams, the hard-line Israel Diplomacy is at best unsexy and slow. At its worst, involving
hawk who was in the previous administration, as saying that the intransigent forces such as Likud and Hamas, it has all the allure of
Obama team should have blocked any resolution at all. watching slugs mate. But diplomacy is the US’s job here. The high
moral outrage is necessary, but it’s the job of others.
The administration was undoubtedly getting these messages,
because last night, Joe Biden defended Bibi Netanyahu. Again • Comments on this article will remain open for 24 hours from the
from the JTA: time of publication but may be closed overnight

“Biden said Israel has an ‘absolute right’ to defend its Israel

security interests, according to a transcript Politico

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 Gaza

Protest

Palestinian territories

Turkey

Middle East

Obama administration

Joe Biden

Barack Obama

US politics

United States

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Michael Tomasky

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Mixing the Personal and the

National Narratives
Oct 28, 2009 09:35AM

2
 in a ghetto where she was born to loving parents who were forced
to part from her, to a new and loving Catholic family, to an aunt
and uncle who brought her to Israel where they found difficulty and
hardship, and then to a fourth family in the U.S. where she grew
into a mature woman. This is a story of heroism, drama, and the
remarkable ability to overcome adversity.

My Sister Tikva is available from Go2Films.

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My Sister Tikva, directed by Vered Berman, is a different kind of

Holocaust memoir.

With much sensitivity and intimacy, it tells the story of a Holocaust

survivor named Tikva, and leads the viewer on a journey,
unraveling the details of her life. Born in 1943 in the Kovno ghetto,
Tikva was moved from family to family, raised by four different sets
of parents, until her journeys brought her to the United States.

Today, as an older woman, she travels to Israel to visit her brother,

Yair, and the story of her life begins to unfold.

Tikva was born to Assia and Yosef, who must have been very
special people to name their daughter, Tikva (“hope”), during those
terrible times. Before they were killed in the destruction of the
ghetto, they gave her to a devout Catholic couple. They took her in
because the wife had grown up as an orphan and was taken care of
by others and she believed that taking in a Jewish toddler provided
her with the opportunity to repay what others had done for her.
Tikva travels to Lithuania to visit this family of righteous Catholics
who saved her life when she was just a toddler.

After three years of living with this family, Tikva’s Aunt Nechama
and her husband came to “rescue” her after the war and brought
her to a D.P. camp and from there to Israel. Due to their dire
financial straits in 1950s Israel, they sent Tikva, at the age of 12, to
live with cousins in America.

Tikva’s odyssey is a remarkable story. On the one hand, it is the

story of one woman’s life and on the other, it reflects the drama of
the Jewish people in the 20th century – from death and destruction