Let me begin by making a clear and loud declaration for all to hear: There is absolutely no basis in Jewish law for the separation of men and women on buses or public streets.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the greatest Orthodox halachic authority of the 20th century, made this very clear in his responsa, where he ruled that there was no problem with riding the New York subway, where men and women are often pressed together in very tight quarters. This applies all the more so when simply sitting in close proximity on a bus.

Aside from the fact that Jewish law certainly allows men and women to sit together on the bus or walk on the same side of the street, there is actually a specific halachic transgression that occurs when such extreme actions are taken.

The Torah clearly prohibits a person from embarrassing another, which is exactly what happens when men harass and intimidate women for sitting in the front of the bus on a “mehadrin” bus line. In certain circumstances, Jewish law actually allows one to transgress a prohibition if doing so will preserve and protect the dignity of a fellow human being.

Therefore, even according to the warped understanding that Jewish law does mandate the separation of men and women in these circumstances, there would certainly be no justification for demeaning a woman by forcing her to move to the back of the bus.

Granted, Jewish law does mandate the separation of men and women during prayer and specific other times, but nothing beyond that. The Torah opens society to women and cautions that it is the man’s responsibility not to “stray after your eyes.”

But this isn’t just about buses. This is about growing extremism in the haredi world, part of which includes the demonization of women.That is the reason in certain neighborhoods the Clalit healthcare fund has stopped giving children stickers with pictures of little girls on them, and the reason some haredi newspapers will not print pictures of women. Some go as far as doctoring photos in order to remove women in adherence of this policy.

IF WE don’t stop this trend to extremism as a political force right now, I fear to think where things will be in 15 years. Will “religious police” dictate where we can walk, what we can eat, and how everyone must dress? We must ensure that our country is really an “Am Shalem” – a “Complete Nation” – where every group and individual, including women, contribute to the greater whole.

So let us take a few moments to clarify what the classic Torah sources say about women in order to understand why I, a haredi rabbi, take a strong stance on this issue.

Right at the beginning of Creation, the Torah says God created one being in the following way: “Male and female He created them.”

If there was only one being, why does the Torah say “them” and describe it as both “male and female”?

The Talmud explains that God fashioned an original being which embodied both male and female characteristics and then separated that one being into two. Why? Why didn’t He make them into separate male and female beings from the start?

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, one of the most prominent Orthodox rabbis of the 19th century, explained as follows: “So that what was previously one creature was not two, and thereby the complete equality of women forever attested [to].”

Complete equality! Not a secondary being who can be told to go to the back of the bus or who can be removed from all pictures. (It is not within the scope of this column to explain what traditional Judaism does see as differing primary roles for men and women, but Rabbi Hirsch calls this a “division of labor,” with neither primary role superior to the other.)

But our tradition goes even beyond demanding equality.The Talmud teaches that the Jews were redeemed from slavery in Egypt due to the merit of Jewish women, and that the women did not worship the golden calf or believe the negative report of the spies about Israel. Our salvation in the Hanukka and Purim stories came because our women rose to the occasion. According to our tradition, women have binah yeteira – an increased ability to understand and comprehend. That quality has saved the Jewish people throughout history.

Finally, in medieval times, when most men treated women as little more than property, Maimonides ruled that “a husband must honor his wife more than his own self.”

The time has come for the non-extremist community, which includes moderate haredim, to demand that the surge to the extreme cease immediately. There can be no more demanding that women move to the back of the bus, no more removing women from all publications, and no more demonization of the half of our nation responsible for our very survival.

It is time for us to place women back on their pedestal and recognize the equality which God intended at Creation thereby enabling and empowering women to flourish, shine and proudly contribute to the future of our state and nation

Haïm Amsellem – JSSNews
The author is a Knesset member, an ordained rabbi and chairman of the Am Shalem movement. www.amshalem.org.

With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process once more sadly hanging by a thread, the international community has already launched a pre-emptive blame game. While the initial focus has been on Israeli building in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, too few have acknowledged that the Palestinians have quietly been allowed to regress from the conventional positions, many of which they formerly accepted, that are essential for any peace process.

There has been much conversation this week in the British media about excessive foul play in English football. Too many tackles have taken the man and not the ball. Many in the international community appear intent on doing likewise – kicking out in the wrong direction and missing the point entirely.

Dormir debout...

For an example of this foul play, consider the reaction to the murder of four Israelis by Palestinian terrorists on 31 August this year.

Even a brutal attack of this nature on the eve of negotiations did not induce Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel‘s prime minister, to withdraw from peace talks. Yet the construction of a few apartments in Judea and Samaria has been viewed by many as a justifiable excuse for the Palestinians to walk out.

Such background events make it difficult for the Israeli public to keep faith in the peace process. And as if all that wasn’t enough, the language of those sitting around the table on the Palestinian side is also troubling.

In English, Palestinian leaders speak about peace and their hopes for the restarted peace process. However, in Arabic, Mahmoud Abbas and other top officials in the Palestinian Authority repeatedly state that they will not make a single concession during the talks. That doesn’t seem to leave too much room for negotiation.

In addition, basic positions are no longer a given. At a recent Palestinian Donors’ Conference at the United Nations, Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad could not even agree to insert the words « two states for two peoples » in the text of the conference summary. This standard formula, established and consistently repeated by the international community, was deemed unacceptable to the most moderate elements of the Palestinian Authority.

While the Israeli position has progressed and developed since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, the Palestinian position has actually regressed. Rather than placing this unhelpful behaviour under severe scrutiny, and examining its impact on the peace process, the international community has instead opted to concentrate attention elsewhere.

It is this current Israeli government that has paved the way for negotiations by constantly stating that all issues are on the table. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have demanded concessions to even arrive at the negotiating table, and once there are not prepared to even countenance compromise. Yet counterintuitively, each rejection by the Palestinians has caused the international community to demand even more concessions from Israel.

The unprecedented settlement moratorium is a fine example. For nine-and-a-half months, Abbas ignored calls from the international community to sit and face the Israelis in the same room. Throughout this window of opportunity, the Palestinian leadership wasted time, decrying the moratorium as unacceptable. Nevertheless, now it has finished, the Palestinians are demanding a prolongation of this very same policy that they continually rebuffed. Worryingly, the international community appears willing to acquiesce.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, noted this irony, purportedly saying about the Palestinian reaction to the moratorium: « It was an unprecedented decision by an Israeli government and now we’re told that negotiations can’t continue unless something that was viewed as being inadequate continues as well. »

Arriving at a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires the permanent acceptance of the Jewish people’s inalienable right to sovereignty, and the corresponding recognition of our self-determination. For over 100 years, Arabs in the region have shunned any possibility of Jewish sovereignty, rights or history in our ancestral home.

The settlements have proved a great distraction from the Palestinian rejection of the fundamental principles of the peace process. One needs to ask whether it is a newly built structure or in fact, the Palestinian refusal to walk down the path towards « two states for two peoples » that is the true impediment to a peaceful solution. This is the basis for the Israeli government’s insistence of a Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

The international community needs to appreciate that it is this rejectionism that is the main obstacle to peace. This issue is the core of any future peaceful resolution. If the Palestinian leadership has still not come to terms with the enduring existence of Israel as a Jewish state, everything else is hollow.

Written by Danny Ayalon in the Guardian

The most interesting voice in all the fallout surrounding the Gaza flotilla incident is that sanctimonious and meddling voice known as « world opinion. » At every turn « world opinion, » like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world’s moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation.

Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word « Israel. » White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.

This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas’s remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn’t they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel’s legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world’s oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.

« World opinion » labors mightily to make Israel look like South Africa looked in its apartheid era—a nation beyond the moral pale. And it projects onto Israel the same sin that made apartheid South Africa so untouchable: white supremacy. Somehow « world opinion » has moved away from the old 20th century view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a complicated territorial dispute between two long-suffering peoples. Today the world puts its thumb on the scale for the Palestinians by demonizing the stronger and whiter Israel as essentially a colonial power committed to the « occupation » of a beleaguered Third World people.

This is now—figuratively in some quarters and literally in others—the moral template through which Israel is seen. It doesn’t matter that much of the world may actually know better. This template has become propriety itself, a form of good manners, a political correctness. Thus it is good manners to be outraged at Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and it is bad manners to be outraged at Hamas’s recent attack on a school because it educated girls, or at the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired into Israeli towns—or even at the fact that Hamas is armed and funded by Iran. The world wants independent investigations of Israel, not of Hamas.

One reason for this is that the entire Western world has suffered from a deficit of moral authority for decades now. Today we in the West are reluctant to use our full military might in war lest we seem imperialistic; we hesitate to enforce our borders lest we seem racist; we are reluctant to ask for assimilation from new immigrants lest we seem xenophobic; and we are pained to give Western Civilization primacy in our educational curricula lest we seem supremacist. Today the West lives on the defensive, the very legitimacy of our modern societies requiring constant dissociation from the sins of the Western past—racism, economic exploitation, imperialism and so on.

When the Israeli commandos boarded that last boat in the flotilla and, after being attacked with metal rods, killed nine of their attackers, they were acting in a world without the moral authority to give them the benefit of the doubt. By appearances they were shock troopers from a largely white First World nation willing to slaughter even « peace activists » in order to enforce a blockade against the impoverished brown people of Gaza. Thus the irony: In the eyes of a morally compromised Western world, the Israelis looked like the Gestapo.

This, of course, is not the reality of modern Israel. Israel does not seek to oppress or occupy—and certainly not to annihilate—the Palestinians in the pursuit of some atavistic Jewish supremacy. But the merest echo of the shameful Western past is enough to chill support for Israel in the West.

The West also lacks the self-assurance to see the Palestinians accurately. Here again it is safer in the white West to see the Palestinians as they advertise themselves—as an « occupied » people denied sovereignty and simple human dignity by a white Western colonizer. The West is simply too vulnerable to the racist stigma to object to this « neo-colonial » characterization.

Our problem in the West is understandable. We don’t want to lose more moral authority than we already have. So we choose not to see certain things that are right in front of us. For example, we ignore that the Palestinians—and for that matter much of the Middle East—are driven to militancy and war not by legitimate complaints against Israel or the West but by an internalized sense of inferiority. If the Palestinians got everything they want—a sovereign nation and even, let’s say, a nuclear weapon—they would wake the next morning still hounded by a sense of inferiority. For better or for worse, modernity is now the measure of man.

And the quickest cover for inferiority is hatred. The problem is not me; it is them. And in my victimization I enjoy a moral and human grandiosity—no matter how smart and modern my enemy is, I have the innocence that defines victims. I may be poor but my hands are clean. Even my backwardness and poverty only reflect a moral superiority, while my enemy’s wealth proves his inhumanity.

In other words, my hatred is my self-esteem. This must have much to do with why Yasser Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s famous Camp David offer of 2000 in which Israel offered more than 90% of what the Palestinians had demanded. To have accepted that offer would have been to forgo hatred as consolation and meaning. Thus it would have plunged the Palestinians—and by implication the broader Muslim world—into a confrontation with their inferiority relative to modernity. Arafat knew that without the Jews to hate an all-defining cohesion would leave the Muslim world. So he said no to peace.

And this recalcitrance in the Muslim world, this attraction to the consolations of hatred, is one of the world’s great problems today—whether in the suburbs of Paris and London, or in Kabul and Karachi, or in Queens, N.Y., and Gaza. The fervor for hatred as deliverance may not define the Muslim world, but it has become a drug that consoles elements of that world in the larger competition with the West. This is the problem we in the West have no easy solution to, and we scapegoat Israel—admonish it to behave better—so as not to feel helpless. We see our own vulnerability there.

By Mr. Steele. He is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

It’s that time of year again.

The kids are excited, there’s a sense of magical anticipation in the air and I know I’m sentimental but I just love it. Yes, it’s Israeli Apartheid Week. A bunch of tax-funded universities across Canada holding events, movies and speeches to publicize just how evil the nasty Jewish state really is. It’s so worth waiting for.

It is entirely acceptable and not necessarily anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli policies, but it’s the apartheid word that causes so many problems. Largely because it’s dumb and dishonest. Yes, there is always a handful of South African radicals who will go to Israel and announce that it’s just like apartheid and that Israeli soldiers eat babies, but they are motivated by ideology rather than truth.

South African whites instituted an entire system of laws, culture and hierarchy to prevent black and brown people from becoming part of mainstream society. In Israel, Jews may and do marry Israeli Arabs. No inter-marriage under apartheid. Israeli Arabs are in the Israeli Parliament, are government ministers, full ambassadors, members of Israeli national sports teams, television anchors, heads of university departments at Israeli universities, officers in the Israeli army. Not the case with black and brown people under apartheid.

Israeli Arabs have full employment and housing rights, equal treatment under the law, a right of appeal if they face discrimination and complete freedom of movement and expression. Again, never allowed under apartheid.

Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank obviously do not enjoy such lives, but they are not Israeli. Their plight has to be addressed, as does the occupation, but this makes Israel merely another imperfect state and has nothing to do with apartheid. Countries have borders and Israel has one with the Palestinian Authority.

Yet if we look at many of Israel’s neighbours, we see a radically different picture. In Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, for example, Christians are persecuted and killed and it is forbidden to convert. Only Muslims are allowed to enter Mecca and Jews were forcibly expelled from most Arab nations in the 1950s. Homosexuals are denied basic rights in the entire area around Israel and in Iran they are publicly executed. In Palestine, they are beaten up and flee to the alleged apartheid state for freedom and safety.

The zealots behind Israeli Apartheid Week know that it’s all nonsense and will tell you privately that what they are actually trying to do is silence critics by demonizing them. Call someone a fascist often enough and eventually the lie begins to resemble a truth. One of the great ironies of all this is that perhaps the only country in the Middle East where it is legal to condemn the governing regime is also the only one in the region to be described as an apartheid system by a gang of leftists and Islamic fundamentalists.

Now I’m off to buy Israeli Apartheid Week cards for all my friends. I must be careful, though, not to get any with a picture of Mohammad on the front — otherwise in the name of freedom, democracy and the fight against apartheid, I might have my head cut off.

Read Michael Coren’s new blog at here.

We can only say Yoav Shamir’s film on antisemitism fell far short of expectation. There was so much more he could have done

Yoav Shamir

Two years ago, Yoav Shamir approached the Anti-Defamation League for assistance on a documentary he was making on the subject of antisemitism. We provided him wide access to film ADL in action, in our offices, at our annual national meeting, on leadership missions in Italy, Ukraine and Poland, and in Israel. Our expectation was that his documentary would present a serious portrait of what Jews worldwide face today – antisemitism in both its age-old and new forms, and the actions taken to counter it.

After seeing Defamation, we can only say the film fell far short of our expectation. Rather than document antisemites and their hatred of Jews and the Jewish state of Israel, the film belittles the issue and portrays the work of ADL and that of his own country as inconsequential. There was so much more Shamir could have and should have done.

Defamation is neither enlightening, nor edifying, nor compelling. It distorts the prevalence and impact of antisemitism and cheapens the Holocaust. It is Shamir’s perverse, personal, political perspective and a missed opportunity to document a serious and important issue.

• This is an official statement made by and on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League, rather than a personally authored article by Mr Foxman; it is reproduced by permission ]]> http://jssnews.com/2010/01/28/the-adls-statement-on-defamation/feed/ 0 http://jssnews.com/2009/11/24/j-street-not-pro-israel-j-street-is-a-fake-lobby/ http://jssnews.com/2009/11/24/j-street-not-pro-israel-j-street-is-a-fake-lobby/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:59:09 +0000 JSS http://jssnews.com/?p=4838 A look into J Street’s donor list and a quick review of the organization’s website clearly reveals a very questionable pro-Israel policy.For a growing Jewish political lobby group that claims to represent Americans “who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland,” J Street seems to be advocating the very opposite of those sentiments.

Not once does J Street point out that Palestinians who commit terror acts against Israel adhere to a radical Islamic ideology that teaches them to do so, nor that key players, like Iran and Syria, are heavily involved in supporting the terror war against Israel. Of course, J Street also refrains from mentioning that Hamas’ charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel.According to the US Federal Election Commission, donors to J Street’s political action committee hail from forums aligned against Israel. J Street’s donors are affiliated with the National Iranian American Council, “Stop the Occupation”, AMIDEAST, the US State Department and the Arab American Institute -establishments not exactly known for pro-Israel views.The Jewish lobby justifies Palestinian rocket fire against civilian Israelis. J Street explains on their website that the “Palestinian people nurture an anger that leads some to armed struggle.”

Among the many private Jewish and Christian donors to J Street, there are also a number of Islamic and pro-Iranian activists, as well as Palestinian and Arab American businesspeople. One such example is Zahi Khouri, a major Palestinian businessman with a Coke franchise in the West Bank. Khouri actually decried Israel’s attempts towards economic peace with the Palestinians in an article he wrote in the New York Times on September 9.

In regard to the recent Gaza conflict, it is J Street’s address of Israel’s side that truly casts some doubt on its “pro-Israel” stance. J Street’s website features a section titled “J Street’s Response to the Gaza Crisis” (note, the word, crisis). The organization lists a number of statements and articles condemning Israel’s military response to the rocket attacks, calling it “disproportional,” “counterproductive” and “deepening the cycle of violence.”

It appears that for J Street, the issue of the Gaza conflict is not even about Gaza but Israel’s military response to Palestinian rocket terrorism.No such criticism exists for Hamas’ rocket warfare and even more disturbing is the website’s lack of information about the destructive impact of the Gaza rockets on Israeli civilians. According to the J Street website, “The right question to ask…is whether the specific actions taken by Israel in Gaza actually serve Israel’s legitimate long-term security interests and America’s best interests. In this case, J Street believes they may well not.”

J Street offers one solution to stop Gaza rocket fire against Israel and that is temporary ceasefires. J Street asserts that “Israel too recognizes that in the end, the only way to truly halt rocket fire into southern Israel is a diplomatic solution.” To back their point, J Street uses the Hamas ceasefire of 2008. “Throughout the 6-month ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that began on June 19, 2008, there was not a single Israeli casualty,” according to the J Street website. Yet J Street could not be more wrong in its assessment.

During the 2008 ceasefire, Hamas built up its rocket infrastructure, expanded its tunnel smuggling system, conducted massive smuggling of Iranian weapons, and trained its forces to ultimately prepare for rocket war against Israel. Six weeks before the ceasefire was to end, Hamas fired more than 500 rockets against civilian populated areas in the western Negev region. The rockets shattered normal life for Sderot residents as their homes, properties, and businesses were heavily damaged. Hundreds of Israeli residents suffered shock and trauma as well as physical injuries during the “ceasefire” period.

J Street asserts that ceasefires are “positive first steps in the long road to a lasting two-state solution.” The organization deliberately overlooks that three ceasefires between Hamas and Israel have all contributed to the strengthening of the Islamic government regime in Gaza, since Hamas came to power in 2006.

Indeed, if J-Street was “so clearly grounded in Jewish values and a desire to support the State of Israel,” as its executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami has declared, one would expect that the Jewish lobby work with concrete facts instead of distorting the Middle East reality to fit their left-wing agenda. More importantly, one would imagine that J Street, which labels itself as a “primarily Jewish organization,” would at least empathize with the suffering of Israelis living under Gaza rocket fire.

J Street’s two main objectives – to conclusively support a two-state solution and ramp up America’s world image, overrides any sense of obligation to the Jewish people of Sderot and the rest of Israel. With a $3 million budget and a growing donors list, J Street’s work as a pro-Palestinian organization, dedicated to Mideast policies that will weaken Israel and delegitimize the Jewish democracy, may be more damaging to Israel in the long term than Hamas rocket warfare.By Anav Silverman (published in ynetnews). She is the international correspondent for Sderot Media Center, www.SderotMedia.org.il, a media advocacy organization dedicated to bringing the voices of Sderot residents to the attention of the global community

Clinton and Netanyahu

Officials speak to reporters in Jerusalem about Middle East peace.

October 31, 2009
Jerusalem

MODERATOR: Good evening, and we welcome Secretary of State Clinton. We shall start with a few words, and then we’ll take two questions from each side. Prime Minister, please.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: It’s my pleasure to welcome Secretary of State of the United States Hillary Clinton to Jerusalem. Welcome, Hillary. You are a great friend and a great champion of peace. I think that we owe a vote of thanks to you, to George Mitchell, to your staffs, and of course, to President Obama and the entire Obama Administration for the tireless efforts to re-launch the peace process – the peace process between us and the Palestinians, and between us and the Arab world – following the President’s vision of a regional peace.

We are eager to advance on both. We think that the place to resolve outstanding issues and differences of opinion is around a negotiating table. We think we should sit around that negotiating table right away. We’re prepared to start peace talks immediately. I think what we should do on the path to peace is to simply get on it and get with it. So I’m sure we’ll discuss these things and other things in the spirit of friendship between us and you, between Israel and the United States. Welcome to Jerusalem.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you so much, Prime Minister. It is a great personal pleasure for me to be back in Jerusalem and a great honor to be here as Secretary of State once again. And I look forward to our discussion, and I appreciate the very positive words about the need to get back into a negotiation that would be in the best interests of Israel and Israel’s security, as well as create a state for the Palestinian people. Both President Obama and I are committed to a comprehensive peace agreement because we do believe that it holds out the best promise for the security and future of Israel, and for the aspirations of the Palestinians.

So I’m looking forward to our discussion tonight. I know you’re someone who is indefatigable, so even though we’re starting our meeting so late, I have no doubt that it will be intense and cover a lot of ground. And I’m very much eager to begin those discussions.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, do you think both sides should re-launch the peace process without any preconditions?

SECRETARY CLINTON: I want to see both sides begin as soon as possible in negotiations. We have worked – and of course, Senator Mitchell has worked tirelessly – in setting forth what are the approaches that each side wishes to pursue in order to get into those negotiations, so I’m not going to express my opinion as to whether or not there should be conditions. The important thing, as the prime minister just said, is to get into the negotiations. I gave the same message today when I met with President Abbas.

We know that negotiations often take positions that then have to be worked through once the actual process starts. I think the best way to determine the way forward is, as the prime minister said, get on the path.

MODERATOR: Mark.

QUESTION: Mark Landler, New York Times. Madame Secretary, when you were here in March on the first visit, you issued a strong statement condemning the demolition of housing units in East Jerusalem. Yet, that demolition has continued unabated, and indeed, a few days ago, the mayor of the city of Jerusalem issued a new order for demolition. How would you characterize this policy today?

For the prime minister, sir, there’s been increasing tension, as you know, around – surrounding the Temple Mount, some civil unrest in the streets. Every time the peace process has lagged, often matters have been settled through violence. Are you worried that we are heading into that phase?

And then a last question, if I may. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s the New York Times, for you. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Dr. Abdullah’s aides in Kabul have confirmed that he’s not going to take part in the runoff. Are you concerned that a Karzai government elected without the benefit of a runoff, given all the fraud in the first round, will be lacking in legitimacy?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, let me say I have nothing to add to my statement in March. I continue to stand by what I said then.

With respect to Afghanistan and Dr. Abdullah’s decision, I think that it is his decision to make. Whatever went into that determination is obviously his choice. But I do not think it affects the legitimacy. There have been other situations in our own country as well as around the world where, in a runoff election, one of the parties decides, for whatever reason, that they are not going to go on. I do not think that that in any way affects the legitimacy. And I would just add that when President Karzai accepted the second round without knowing what the consequences and outcome would be, that bestowed legitimacy from that moment forward, and Dr. Abdullah’s decision does not in any way take away from that.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: I’m concerned with the attempts to create provocations around the issue of the Temple Mount. There are parties who are trying to do that. I assure you that the Government of Israel is not one of them. There are also extraordinary falsifications. My staff decided to have a meeting, a free evening, a few weeks ago. They decided to have it in the Old City. In the David City there’s a little restaurant there. They said, « Could you come for dessert, » because I worked long hours. I said, « Sure, I’ll see what I can do. I don’t promise, but we’ll make the arrangements. »

Our security people went there. Within an hour, Palestinian news agencies carried the story that Netanyahu was coming to the Old City to burrow a new tunnel under the Temple Mount. So help me God, this became an issue of great consequence. There were rumors that the violence would break out, exactly as you said. Now, this is entirely false. I give that as one example. There are daily examples of this and daily actions by militants, particularly the militant Islamic radicals who are trying to stir up trouble on the Temple Mount.

We are going to continue our efforts to keep Jerusalem safe, open, quiet, accessible to all three great faiths – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And the city is now very robust. It’s got a lot of tourism, as you see in the entire area. And the best way to see what is happening there is to go for yourself. Go take a look. You’ll see. And you’ll see our actual policy in place. We want a peaceful Jerusalem without provocations on the Temple Mount or anywhere else.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, you went to Abu Dhabi, and I believe you came up with not much from Abu Mazen, who is actually presenting Israel and the United States with lots of no’s. Also, United States is encountering many no’s from Iran. At the moment, it doesn’t look like some arrangement is being made at the moment. What is your reaction to what – receiving the no’s from the Arab world?

And the same question, please, to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first of all, I believe that strategic patience is a necessary part of my job, and I view the conversations that we had this morning with President Abbas and his team as being very constructive and useful in continuing the move toward engagement that leads to negotiations. So if Senator Mitchell and I appear to be patient and persistent, it’s because we are. We think it’s worth being both.

With respect to Iran, there is not yet a final decision with respect to the Tehran research reactor. The important matter that I would underscore is the unity among the P-5+1, which includes not only the United States but the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and also the EU, in putting forth and in staying firm with this. The world is united in a view that Iran should not have or acquire nuclear weapons capacity. And our view is that we are willing to work toward creative outcomes like shipping out the low-enriched uranium to be reprocessed outside of Iran. But we’re not going to wait forever. Patience does have, finally, its limits. And it is time for Iran to fulfill its obligations and responsibilities to the international community, and accepting this deal would be a good beginning.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: You asked two questions, one on Iran and the other on the peace process. On Iran, I want to express our appreciation for the very clear stance adopted by President Obama that has united, as Secretary Clinton has just said, an international consensus that Iran must cease its efforts to become a nuclear military power. I think the fact that there has been unity that has not been seen for a long time on this position is something very valuable, very important. And I think it’s important not only for Israel, I think it’s important for the Middle East, for our region, for the peace of the world. So I want to commend the efforts of you and President Obama and the Western and other leaders have taken here to – on this issue that I think is central to the future of the world, to the future of peace.

As far as the question about the peace process is concerned, look, first let me, before you talk about the no’s, talk about the yes. And I want to put rhetoric aside and talk about facts. It’s a fact that since my government took office, we dismantled hundreds of earth blocks, checkpoints, facilitated movement in the Allenby Bridge, and eliminated a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to daily life and economic activity in the Palestinian Authority’s areas. And as a result, there’s been a Palestinian economic boom. That is a fact.

The second fact is that I gave a speech at Bar Ilan University in which I said that Israel will accept the vision of two states for two peoples, a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state of Israel. It wasn’t easy to do, but we did it. That is a fact.

The third fact is that we’ve been talking earnestly, openly, and transparently to the American Administration, and we’ve talked about measures that we can take to facilitate further the launching – the re-launching of the peace process. That is a fact.

The simple fact is this: We are willing to engage in peace talks immediately without preconditions. The other fact is that, unfortunately, the other side is not. It is asking and piling on preconditions that it never put on in the 16 years that we’ve had that the peace process since the annunciation of the Oslo Accords. There have not been these preconditions. It’s a change of Palestinian policy, and I hope they change back to the right thing, which is to get into the negotiating tent. We’re eager and sincere in our desire to reach an agreement to end this conflict. I happen to think that we’re able to do this, contrary to all the pessimists around us. But the only way we can get to an agreement is to begin negotiating, and that is something that we are prepared to do. That is a fact.

MODERATOR: Finally, Joe Klein from Time Magazine. Yes.

QUESTION: I’m tempted to ask why is this night different from all other nights –

SECRETARY CLINTON: Do you want us to burst into song? (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Yes. For 40 years, we’ve seen American secretaries of state and Israeli prime ministers in a similar situation. Despite the prime minister’s optimism, the talks are stalled. The prospect of talks is stalled. And while you’ve said yes without preconditions to talks, so many of your – you’ve said no to a settlement freeze. And I wonder whether that would be open to negotiation.

And Madame Secretary, is the Obama Administration still in favor of a total freeze? And if not, what’s plan b?

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Joe, the specific question you asked about the settlements also has to be fully factual. The fact of the matter is that we – I said we would not build new settlements, not expropriate land for addition for the existing settlements, and that we were prepared to adopt a policy of restraint on the existing settlements, but also one that would still enable normal life for the residents who are living there.

Now, there has not been in the last 16 years – not 40 years but 16 years, since the beginning of the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians – any demand every put not on restraint, but on any limitation on settlement activity as a precondition for entering negotiations. This is a new thing. Now, it’s true that you can take a new thing and you can repeat it ad nauseum for a few weeks and a few months, and it becomes something that is obvious and has been there all the time. It’s not been there all the time.

QUESTION: It was there in the first Bush Administration, right?

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: No, there has not been a precondition for entering or continuing with the peace process between us and the Palestinians. There’s not been a demand coming from the Palestinians that said we will not negotiate with you unless you freeze all activity – something that is problematic in so many ways, judicial and in other ways. I won’t get into that. But this is a new demand. It’s a change of policy, the Palestinian policy. And it doesn’t do much for peace. It doesn’t work to advance negotiations. It actually – this uses a pretext, or at least does something as an obstacle that prevents the reestablishment of negotiations.

Now, mind you, the issue of settlements, the issue of territories, the issue of borders – these will be engaged in the negotiations, and they’ll have to be resolved for a peace agreement to be achieved. But you can’t resolve it in advance of the negotiations, and you certainly shouldn’t pile it on as a precondition.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I would add just for context that what the prime minister is saying is historically accurate. There has never been a precondition. It’s always been an issue within the negotiations. What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements, which he has just described – no new starts, for example – is unprecedented in the context of the prior two negotiations. It’s also the fact that for 40 years, presidents of both parties have questioned the legitimacy of settlements.

But I think that where we are right now is to try to get into the negotiations. The prime minister will be able to present his government’s proposal about what they are doing regarding settlements, which I think when fully explained will be seen as being not only unprecedented but in response to many of the concerns that have been expressed. There are always demands made in any negotiation that are not going to be fully realized. I mean, negotiation, by its very definition, is a process of trying to meet the other’s needs while protecting your core interests. And on settlements, there’s never been a precondition, there’s never been such an offer from any Israeli government. And we hope that we’ll be able to move in to the negotiations where all the issues that President Obama mentioned in his speech at the United Nations will be on the table for the parties to begin to resolve.

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Thank you very much.

It would probably be difficult to tell the difference between the seven youngsters who arrived Tuesday at Ben Gurion airport, and the thousands of Chinese construction workers living in Israel. However, the young Chinese arrivals, aged 19 to 23, are descendants of an ancient Jewish community which originated from the city of Kaifeng.

Immediately following their arrival, the seven knelt down and kissed the soil of the Holy Land. « My dream is to complete the process of converting to Judaism and become a certified rabbi, after which I will return to my community and serve as its first rabbi since the dissolve of the Jewish community some 150 years ago, » said 23-year-old Yaacob Wang. « I am excited to arrive to the holy land. It is a dream come true, » he added. The first destination on the new immigrants’ list was the Western Wall, where they prayed « Shehecheyanu », a blessing recited upon a noteworthy achievement. « I cannot believe after all these years I get to finally visit the Western Wall which I dreamt of for years and drew in many of my drawings, » said Hang Shir, 24.

The group’s trip to Israel was arranged by Shavei Israel organization, which has been in contact with the Israeli government over the past two years, and recently received authorization from the Ministry of Interior to give the seven a one-year entrance permit, during which they will study Hebrew and go through the conversion process.

Shavei Israel founder Michael Freund, who funded the project out of his own pocket, said Tuesday « this is an experimental project, and if it proves successful, we will bring more descendants of the Kaifeng community, of which a little less than half would like to make Aliyah. » It is still not clear exactly when the first Jews arrived to China, and around what year the Kaifeng community, which currently has some 1,000 members, was established. However, according to the prevailing theory among scientist as well as Kaifeng Jews’ descendants, the community’s ancestors were merchants from Persia, who arrived to Kaifeng – then the capital of China — via the silk road during the 10th and 12th centuries.

Although the Kaifeng Jews almost completely assimilated, their descendants continued to observe certain traditions such as not consuming pork, which is the main meat product in China, baking matzo during Passover, painting their frame-head in red instead of a mezuzah, and lighting Hanukkah candles.

In recent years, some decedents of the community began searching for their roots. « One explanation is the internet, which allowed them access to information about Judaism and Israel, which they wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise, » said Freund. Recently, three young Kaifeng Jews made aliyah with the help of Shavei Israel, completed their conversion process, and became full citizens of Israel. This time, the organized group will live in the religious Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, where they will study Hebrew for five months, after which they will complete their conversion.