December 21, 2010 Border With Gaza Heats Up? More Signs of Racisim in Israel. Netanyahu to Plea for Pollard's Release

A Daily Analysis

A series of rockets have landed on Southern Israel in the last two days. It's not clear what is behind the surge of attacks, which have not been carried out by Hamas, but have occurred with its ok. Israel responded today by attacking Hamas installations, for the first time in a quite a while. This time Israel chose installations that were actually manned and not abandoned. The fear is that the situation may escalate. Meanwhile, Israel's anti-missile deterence system remains in storage.

It was announced today by the IDF that last week an advanced anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli tank near the border. The missile, which was of the same Russian design used in Lebanon by Hezbollah, penetrated the armor of the tank. This has resulted in the redeployment of Israeli forces, moving the older Mechava III tanks off the line to be replaced by a brigade, which deployed the Merchava IV. The Merchava IV includes an active armor defense that can defeat the missiles.

There have been a series of very disturbing incidents of racist anti-Arab behavior in the last few days. These episodes take place, of course, in the shadow of the racist statements made by the group rabbis two weeks ago. The first incident was the arrest of a group of 15 Jewish teenagers who have been charged with attacking Arab men in West Jerusalem parks over the past few months. The second incident was a demonstration against Arabs living in Bat Yam, (led by a local Rabbi). The crowd claimed that if these Arabs continue to live in Bat Yam they would marry their daughters. Finally, only slightly less offensive, was a rally tonight in Sh'chu'not Hatikva in Tel Aviv against foreign workers. There is something so fundamentally wrong with Israel's education system for all this to be happening now. It would have been understandable, but not right, if there had been large scale anti-Arab racism right after the Yom Kippur War, when we had lost so many. Or even if such protests broke out during the second intifada. But now? These actions are not the product of events, but a failure of Israel's schools, and certainly the religious establishiment to combat racism. Did dear Herzl who imagined becoming "a people like all others"include being racists like all others as well?

Prime Minister Netanyahu announced he would accede to the request of Jonathan Pollard and his supprorters and make a direct and public appeal to President Obama for his release. It's about time. The man has been sitting in jail for over 25 years. Whatever one thinks about the crime Pollard committed, there is no one who believes he should have been incarcerated for this long. Of course it would help if Obama had any reason to feel grateful to Netanyahu.

Roger Cohen had an interesting article in todays Times called the