FIRST TRIP TO ISRAEL

It has been almost 50 years since our first trip to Israel in November 1968. Rose and I had just been married about 4 or 5 months. I was in my last year of a dermatology residency training. It was the year after the 6 Day War and the territory controlled by Israel now included the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Sinai Peninsula as well as pre1967 Israel. Rose was working for Northwest Orient Airline. The trip was a package by El Al Airline for employees of other airlines at an unbelievably cheap price. Each airline would offer such trips to employees of other airlines to encourage referrals. It was a concentrated trip of about 5 days. Israel was young and we were young. We still were pre-children, mortgage, and other obligations. Israel was thrust from a position of underdog independent social democracy into being an occupier and guardian of unwilling Palestinian Arabs living in that occupied land.
The trip began with a flight from Chicago to New York. After a quick subway trip into Manhattan to visit relatives, we returned to the airport to meet up with the American segment of the tour. We left late at night and during the next day we stopped in Rome where we picked up 2 segments from Germany and Italy, then on to Israel. As it turned out the 3 segments were as interesting as the trip itself.
After arrival in Israel, we went to Jerusalem where we were housed in an Arab hotel in East Jerusalem. Apparently the reason for East Jerusalem was that the Israeli government wanted to encourage the economy in the Arab sector. The next day the tour took us to King David's tomb on Mount Zion. While we were standing there outside, we saw a puff of smoke in the distance and then heard a dull boom. We asked the guide what it was, but he did not know. Later after we were done visiting the tomb, we heard that a terrorist bomb had been set off in the Machane Yehudah Market Place. Later in the evening during supper at the hotel, we heard jeeps rolling in the street. At one point we heard gun shots. The Arab waiters then began drawing the drapes in the dining room. The waiters appeared to be silently resentful. The time was also an event in the Moslem calendar. So during the night as we tried to sleep, we could hear calls from  the minarets over loud speakers alternating with the sound of jeeps. We had planned to visit relatives in Jerusalem whom we had never previously met, but next morning the time in Jerusalem was cut short, and we left early on a drive across the West Bank to a Kibbutz in the Galilee. The Italians sat in the back of the bus and serenaded us with endless Italian songs. The Germans sat quietly and seemed somewhat ill at ease. This was 23 years after the end of the Holocaust, and we were in a land of Jews many of whom were holocaust survivors. We stopped at an Arab village in the West Bank for what our guide called "coffee in and coffee out." The Italians purchased noodles there, After leaving the village, the Italians asked the guide if they might make spaghetti at the Kibbutz in the Galilee. The guide promised to inquire when we would arrive. After arrival and after negotiating with the Kibbutz kitchen people concerning the kashrut of the noodles, it was determined that the noodles were kosher and the kibbutz kitchen would supply the rest of the ingredients. At dinner we each had a choice between the regular kibbutz dinner or spaghetti. After dinner Rose asked the guide if there was anywhere in the area for dancing. The guide responded that if Ari the bus driver would be willing to drive us, there was a discotheque nearby called the Blue Beat (or maybe it was called the Blue Beach). Ari agreed, so off we all went. The discotheque was dimly lit with blue light and was overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Our group made up a significant part of the clientele that night. The rest were young Israeli men and women. Most of the men were soldiers in uniform. There were a number of single young women in our group, mostly in the German segment. The Israeli soldiers went up to the German girls and asked them to dance. It was a magical evening, the discotheque, the location, the view, the blue light. It broke the ice for the Germans. They became relaxed for the rest of the trip. After Galilee and then Haifa, we ended our trip in Tel Aviv where after sight seeing with the group, we had some free time to meet relatives.
A number of months later, after I had finished my residency training and before starting a dermatology practice, we took a trip to Europe and included a few days back to Israel to see some of the things we had missed on the first trip and to meet our Jerusalem relatives. After that trip we progressed into adult life. We have not been back to Israel, but it appears from a distant view that along with maturity, much has changed there, some for the better, some for worse. But that is another discussion.

THREE BOOKS

Three interesting books have come on the market recently which touch on the Trump presidency. The first is "Fire and Fury" by Michael Wolff. This is a fly on the wall book. The author was able to get access to sit in the West Wing of the White House to observe the Trump administration. The strength of the book is not so much in the author's opinions as in in his observations. He demonstrates the chaos and dysfunction that many have suspected but were not sure about.
The second book is "The Plot to Hack America" by Malcolm Nance, an American intelligence person. This book is a cut and dried presentation of how the Russian intelligence service under Vladimir Putin has attacked democracy in America and other western nations by cultivating influence over compromised American and other western citizens and by hacking into internet emails and web sites to gain information and create fake information to influence and degrade democratic institutions in America and elsewhere. They even were apparently successful in compromising Donald Trump and tipping the scale to get him elected to the presidency of the USA.
The third book is "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership" by James Comey. I am still reading it having read about half way through. It is the most meaty and introspective of the 3 books. The author shows an obsession with honesty and integrity. He is also obsessively protective of the American justice system. It seems to me that it was those obsessions that got him into trouble in the matter of the Hillary Clinton emails. It goes into his personal life and how it influenced the various decisions that he has made. It discusses the recent events for which he has become famous, the Clinton emails, the investigation into the apparent collusion of Trump and Putin leading to Comey being fired as FBI director, and the efforts by Trump and his people to obstruct the collusion investigation, both that of Comey as FBI director and then of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.
All three books are important in understanding the present political situation in America and how America interacts with the world. Wolff presents information. Nance presents and assesses information. Comey presents, assesses information, and describes how a human being in an important position interacts with problems presented to him and makes decisions to meet those problems. While Wolff and Nance present and assess using the means at their disposal, Comey is actually part of his story and relates that story in great detail.

IMMIGRATION

I believe in promoting immigration and oppose the nativism promoted by Trump. Immigration is the life blood of America. It is wrong to allow only immigrants who are accomplished before arriving. Trump opposes “chain migration.” I am a product of chain migration. My parents were immigrants. Both my grandfathers came first, made money, and then sent for the rest of their families (including my parents). My grandfather helped his brothers come over and they in turn sent for their families. We are all normal Americanized productive citizens. My father was a dentist and my brother and I are both physicians. Our extended family includes people in various professions and trades. Many of us have served in the military when drafted (unlike Trump).

WHAT'S WRONG WITH TRUMP PRESIDENCY

Those who apologize for the Trump presidency say that the Trump group should be given some slack because they are new to government and because the American people voted for Trump because they wanted someone new. I want to reply to that argument.

1. All new presidents are new to the presidency. There have been variations in each one’s learning curve, but until now there has been a learning curve in each case. Trump unfortunately has no learning curve because he claims to be smarter than everyone else, knows everything, and therefore does not have to learn. He also appears to surround himself in his inner circle with a number of unsavory people who think they are also geniuses and give him poor advice (for example Bannon, Manafort, and Flynn).

2. It is not clear that the American people voted for Trump. Actually he lost the popular vote. He won the electoral college narrowly by a successful campaign that targeted key gerrymandered states. His campaign was also aided greatly by illegally working with the intelligence service of a foreign adversarial government to hack his opponent’s emails and plant fake news on social media.

3. Trump did not separate himself from his personal financial interests. Therefore decisions concerning the United States (including relations with foreign governments) are influence by how they affect Trump’s money. In fact, it appears that he uses his position as president to promote his personal business. For example, foreign businesses and governments give his businesses (including many business interests in foreign lands) preferences to gain favor with the US president.

4. Trump demeans the free press and favors fake news organizations like Breitbart and Fox News. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy.

5. Trump’s fake “America first” policy actually puts America last by pulling us out of international agreements, free trade, and favors old fossil fuel industries over new renewable energy. China is now overtaking us as the leader in renewable energy and climate control, not because they are better than us but because under Trump we are abandoning our future. The Chinese leader recently boasted that their authoritarian government is better for the ordinary citizen than western democracy while Trump is trying to turn us into a fossil fuel kleptocracy like Russia. The tragedy of Trump is that he is throwing 250 years of American progress into the toilet.

DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS

I grew up in a Democratic environment. My parents were Democrats. As an adult for many years I considered myself an Independent. For years, I did not register with either party. However years ago when I was living in Illinois I registered once as a Republican because I wanted to vote in the Republican primary for Anderson, a moderate Republican, who was running against Reagan to be the Republican candidate for president. When I went in to the booth to vote, there was no Anderson on the ballot and no Reagan, just a bunch of strange names. I went out of the booth to the judges table and asked why Reagan and Anderson were not on the ballot and who are all these strange people? There was no answer from the Republican judges, but the Democratic judge took pity on me and led me far away from the polling booths. She explained that the names are electors. Thompson, the head of the Illinois Republican party, put the only electors names on the ballot instead of the candidates they represented. Apparently Thompson and the Illinois Republican establishment favored Reagan, and in this way the party faithful were clued in to who was the elector for Reagan, but outsiders like me would be clueless. Needless to say, Reagan carried Illinois in the nomination and ultimately carried the nation to become president. I went back to being an Independent who usually voted Democratic.

In recent years since the Radical Right has radicalized the Republican party, I have given up the illusion of being an Independent and have become a registered Democrat. I consider myself slightly left of center. Those on the extreme left might derisively call me a neo-liberal. I believe in a well regulated capitalism that serves the public, not just a few fast buck gluttons who think only of how the wealthiest few can gather as much $ as possible without consideration for the rest of us or who they must trample on to achieve their goals. On the other hand we don’t have to demonize all of the corporate world as long as they share some of those $ for the public good.

Since Trump has become president, I have joined the Resistance. I wrote post cards for Doug Jones who is now a senator from Alabama. And I wrote post cards for a Democrat in Florida who is running for state representative. I don't like to demonize anyone, but Trump really has taken the Republican party to a new low. He lies. He conspired with Putin, the Russian dictator, to hack America to give Trump the edge he needed to eke out a majority in the electoral college (although he lost the popular vote) to win the presidency. Now the Radical Republicans and Trump have pushed through a tax bill which will impoverish America by raiding our Treasury to give $ to the gluttons at the expense of the rest of us. We can only hope that the Democrats can win the Congress next year to put a brake on the Republican rape of the American economy.

A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES

When I see the love fest between Netanyahu and Trump (a nativist, corrupt, narcissist, liar) it makes me cringe. I was dismayed recently when I opened a Middle East magazine in the local book store that portrayed the Palestinian Arabs as innocent victims of a demon Israel. I am also dismayed when a commentator on television news says that some nativist action by Trump is only applauded by Russia and Israel (without acknowledging that not all Israelis are pro-Netanyahu or the extreme Right just as not all Russians are pro-Putin). I am a Zionist in that I am concerned for safety of the 40% of my fellow Jews in the world who live in Israel. Israel faces an existential problem in its relations with the Moslem world including the Palestinian and other Arab people as well as the government of Iran. But is the belligerency of Netanyahu’s words really promoting the safety of the people of Israel or undercutting their safety? I am disheartened when I hear many of my fellow American Jews beginning to question their fondness for Israel. I want desperately to speak only good about Israel, and there are certainly many good things to say about Israeli democracy (although incomplete), science, technology, stability (better than in much of the surrounding neighborhood), but the settlements and the actions of the Israeli Far Right interfere. Theodore Herzl (the founder of the Zionist movement) in his novel Old New Land envisioned an Israel where Jews and Arabs would work together. He saw the danger of the revisionist extreme Right in Zionism.

The Arab leaders can not be taken off the hook. They have missed many opportunities for Palestinian self determination. Israel would have accepted the UN partition if the Arab League armies had not invaded the land in 1948. Most Palestinian Arabs moved out of the land to make way for those invading armies.  During the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank and the Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip, there was no call for an independent Palestine. In 1967 it was Egypt and Jordan that invaded the land putting all of it plus the Sinai Peninsula in Israeli control, although in the long run it was Egypt and Jordan that gained from that war by transferring the occupation headache to Israel. In fact Jordan later wisely cemented its freedom from the West Bank by renouncing any claim to it. When Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat the best deal he could offer, Arafat made no counter offer and started an intifada to which Barak overreacted. This ended a decade of peace building. A pro-Palestinian acquaintance once justified Arafat’s actions by saying he had to do what he did because the other Palestinians would have killed him if he had done otherwise. But that is exactly the problem. If a Palestinian leader has to risk his life to make peace, there will be no peace. On the other hand Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated because he was a hero for peace.

I have some advice for the Center, Left, and Arab parties in Israel. Together you might actually be the majority in the State of Israel. You guys might very well be the hope for peace, but it won’t happen unless you put aside your less important differences and get together to take the government back from Netanyahu, the Settler Movement, and the Far Right. And my advice to the Palestinians is if the Center, Left, and Arab parties in Israel can form a coalition that can win over the Israeli government in the next election, you better get together and reach a compromise with that government, because that is the best deal you are going to get. Of course, that’s assuming you really want to come to some reasonable agreement (or perhaps you just prefer playing victims over actually taking the responsibilities of leadership). Maybe all sides prefer the status quo of dragging their feet. After all there is a kind of peace punctuated by an occasional riot. But I am afraid that this peace is a temporary illusion which will not last forever. I don’t think real peace will come only from some grand peace treaty, but rather from the ground up by people on the ground learning to live together either as separate nations, one nation, or some kind of confederation. Also it won’t happen overnight but if it is to happen at all, things have to start to move in that direction. I remember someone once said something like “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

A GOOD PERSON CAN MAKE A BAD DECISION

George W Bush seems to me to be a good and honest person with good intentions. However, when he was president he made a disastrous decision to invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. It seems he received terrible advice from his advisors. The war was supposedly because Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. However none were found. The invasion was supposedly part of the response to 9-11. But although Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, he probably had no direct involvement in 9-11. The war in Afghanistan truly was related to 9-11 because Al Qaeda (the perpetrators of 9-11) were centered in Afghanistan with the consent of the Taliban who at the time ruled Afghanistan. Unfortunately the war in Iraq and ousting of Saddam Hussein upset the balance of power between Iraq and Iran. It also created a power vacuum which was taken up by a Shiite Iraqi government allied to Iran whose fundamentalist government is no friend of America. It also unleashed various hostile Sunni factions, and ultimately led to the creation of ISIS. The Iraq war also spread the US forces thinly, thus impeding progress in the Afghanistan war. Add to all of that the price in lost American military lives, lost Iraqi lives, the loss of American resources, and the exposure of the limitations of American power. Besides being a mistake from the outset, the war was conducted without a plan of what to do with Iraq after it was conquered. The Iraqi people did not spontaneously come together to form a new government. The Iraq War was a disaster in which we are still embroiled after years have gone by. I think by the end of his term in office, President Bush himself realized his failure.

I do not believe that George W Bush is an evil person, but he made a bad decision in invading Iraq, and to make matters worse he had no constructive plan for after the invasion. The result has been a tragedy for America, Iraq, and the world.