Grapevine: Civil discussion

The growing number of countries announcing their recognition of a Palestinian state doesn’t necessarily mean it is on the immediate horizon or that all those countries’ citizens are in agreement with their governments.

David Parsons, vice president and senior spokesman, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, notes that Christian leaders in Ireland and Norway affiliated with the ICEJ International Christian Embassy instantly rejected the decision by their respective governments to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, denouncing it as a grave mistake and a “reward for terrorism.” ICEJ affiliates in other countries have reacted similarly.

“Christian supporters of Israel in Ireland sense a deep shame regarding the actions of our government in recognizing a state of Palestine under the present circumstances,” said Paul Coulter, national director of ICEJ-Ireland. “Nothing has been achieved by this action except to reward the barbarism of Hamas, and we fear it will only encourage further attacks on Israel and political intransigence by Palestinian leaders. This is an extremely dangerous message to jihadists everywhere that violence pays.”

Ireland was on the wrong side of history when, in 1945, it expressed condolences to the German people on the death of Adolf Hitler, and it is on the wrong side of history now, said Coulter. Last month, he helped spearhead a rally of 1,000 supporters of Israel in front of the Parliament building in Dublin.

Meanwhile, Norwegian Christians also spoke out against their government’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood. “Many Christians in Norway find this decision indefensible, extremely dangerous, and counterproductive to peace,” said Dag Oyvind Juliussen, national director of ICEJ-Norway.

“Norway’s government has chosen to completely disrespect Israel as a fellow democracy and ignored binding international legal agreements, including the Oslo Accords, which were grounded in the core principle that a potential Palestinian state should be the result of direct negotiations between the parties and should not be imposed unilaterally upon Israel,” he declared.

Juliussen also noted that already in 2012, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had published a report on Norway that strongly criticized the growing anti-Israel attitudes in Norwegian society, warning it could soon fuel intolerable levels of antisemitism. At that time, surveys showed that 38% of Norwegians believed that Israeli treatment of Palestinians was analogous to Nazi actions against Jews.

In response, the OSCE urged Norway’s leaders and, in particular, its Foreign Ministry, to “promote a civil discussion of the Middle East conflict and admonish those who, in the course of debate, would demonize the State of Israel.” This was never followed up by government officials, and the anti-Israel imbalance has only grown worse in Norwegian media coverage of the region, especially on the state-owned TV channel.

Last month, ICEJ-Norway led several other pro-Israel organizations in staging a large rally in front of the national Parliament in Olso to protest the government’s chronic lack of action with regard to combating antisemitism and rectifying its unfair treatment of Israel.

Chabad of Baka

■ THE SOUTH Jerusalem branch of The Friendship Circle, run by Chabad of Baka under the direction of Rabbi Avraham and Dina Hendel, has been functioning for 14 years. Last Friday, it held its third annual bike ride across Jerusalem, departing from the First Station, after which cyclists and Friendship Circle families and their supporters gathered for lunch, games, sports, and music at the Baka community center. 

The Friendship Circle is a nonprofit organization that is presumably somewhat affiliated with Chabad. Other branches are also run by Chabad emissaries, but similar organizations abroad are not Jewish. The goal is to help children with special needs integrate into the mainstream community with the help of teenage volunteers, who, after a training period, quickly develop leadership abilities, not to mention strong bonds of friendship with the children whom they help and the families of those children. They go camping with them, play games with them, visit them in their homes, attend their birthday parties, and much more.

The role of the volunteers is very important, not only in terms of what they are doing now but also in terms of what they will be doing as adults, having learned that many children with special needs also have special talents that should be cultivated to benefit society as a whole.

■ ACCORDING TO the Israel State Archives, Jerusalem’s population at the time of the founding of the state was 10,189. It was then a divided city. Since the 1967 war, which brought about the reunification of Jerusalem, the city’s population has grown by leaps and bounds, and it now has a population of over one million. Over the years, however, even while growing demographically, Jerusalem has had to contend with a steady exodus of young people who consider Tel Aviv a more exciting place with better employment opportunities and more extensive social freedoms.

During a Jerusalem Day interview with Reshet Bet, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion acknowledged the ongoing exodus, saying it was due to a housing scarcity.  That’s not quite true, as there are rental and for sale signs on numerous buildings throughout the capital, but the rent and purchase prices are prohibitive and beyond the means of anyone on an average salary. For this reason, there is a master plan calling for an additional 700 affordable housing units to be constructed each year, said Lion.

He seems to forget that Jerusalem is an unplanned city with many narrow streets and dead ends. As it stands, traffic in both directions on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway is so congested that it’s a nightmare, and what should be a 45-minute ride can take up to three hours. Public transportation is not exactly the answer because it is already overcrowded at most hours of the day, and nobody wants to go to work feeling like a sardine – and sometimes smelling like one – because there is no air conditioning on the bus, the light rail, or the train.

Part of the solution to traffic congestion is the building of bridges and tunnels, but is that what Israel should look like 10 years down the line – a living image of science fiction?

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