Opuscula Peace and the Ahmedah

A thought on the "normalization" agreements.

They are NOT "peace treaties."

They are, primarily, trade agreements.

A good start toward peace, but not peace.

Bahrani Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, and United Arab Emirates Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan at signing of the Abraham Accords on September 15, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

 

In the weekday Ahmedah (אמידה) we — Sefardim — read

"ועושה לה תקוב טובה ואחרית שלום"

Give us good hope and afterwards peace.¹

What we have with the "normalization" agreements is hope.

Hope that the governments — as they stand now — won't make war on us or send troops against us.

It will be years before we have a true "peace" with these not-next-door neighbors.

"Peace" to this scrivener's mind means acceptance by all our neighbors, not just the governments.

Peace with governments AND people

We have a "peace" treaty with Egypt and another with Jordan.

But, except for officials, traveling to — or from — either country is less than casual; indeed, it can be dangerous.

An Israeli can travel to Jordan, but he must leave his sedur in Israel.

An Egyptian has difficulty LEAVING Egypt for Israel.

Once there was a direct flight between Cairo and Lod. A thing of the past.

There are flights from Amman to Lod, but via a third country, often Turkey. A half hour flight now takes about 18 hours.

It could be worse. Israelis are prohibited from entering the PLO/PFLA-controlled areas and entry into Gaza by a sane Israeli almost is suicide. (Hamas is holding two Israelis who voluntarily entered Gaza. Both are thought to be mentally deficient. Hamas refuses to return them to Israel.)

Long memories

The U.S. "civil war" was ended more than 150 years ago.

Yet, today — December 2020 — there are places where "damnYankees" still are not welcome. In the north, many Southerners still are automatically considered racists, bigots, even sans any evidence of this.

While it would be NICE to think that the people of Bahrain, the UAE, Sudan, et al will welcome us in friendship, the "man in the street" in the end counts more than those in the governments.

I did not include Morocco as it has a generally welcoming population, albeit there are those who oppose not only peace with Israel but the king as well.

Sad but true. A Jew may be

  ✡ Safer in Bahrain than in France.

  ✡ Safer in the UAE than in Germany.

  ✡ Safer in Morocco than England.

For now.

On the flip side, Israelis, particularly those whose parents came from Muslim lands, need to control their hate of Muslims, Israeli Muslims and visitors from the "normalized" countries. Again, government officials are one thing; the man in the street is altogether a different matter.

Notes

1 Ahmedah, winter prayer "ברך עלינו" which most Ashkenazim don't have.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Comment on eace and the Ahmedah

Opuscula GCC looks westward To counter Iran nukes

 

An item from the May 22 issue of The Israel Project (TIP) proved interesting, but left me with a "Why Morocco" question.

The item:

Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday conveyed a statement from a joint committee established by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates committing to confronting "regional challenges," the latest in what increasingly appear to be systematic moves by Riyadh to bolster its regional position opposite Iran. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had already in late April formally invited Jordan and Morocco to integrate themselves into a conventional military alliance under which the Gulf states would trade aid and the new members would potentially provide 300,000 troops to collective efforts. Meanwhile Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal - a top figure in the country’s royal family and its former intelligence chief - went further, speculating that Gulf states would have to acquire "nuclear know-how" to offset Iran. AFP also read a new Saudi-UAE "supreme committee" against the backdrop of tensions between most Arab states, on the one hand, and Qatar, on the other. The wire bluntly assessed that "Qatar is accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have long been hostile." Tensions have recently been dampened by Qatari moves to return to the GCC fold, but many analysts take it as a given that the region remains divided between three overarching blocs: the Iranian camp that includes Syria and Hezbollah, the camp of America's traditional Arab allies plus Israel, and an axis composed of Turkey, Qatar, and various country-by-country Brotherhood groups. The Obama administration has faced sustained criticism for being insufficiently supportive of its traditional allies.

I can understand why the GCC would want to include Jordan in its military pact. Saudia and Jordan are neighbors, albeit Jordon is hardly more than a spot on the map when comparing land mass. (Jordon still is bigger than Israel, even with the "disputed territories.")

The distance between Rabat, Morocco and Riyadh Saudia Arabia is roughly 3300 miles or a little less than seven (7) hours flight time (at commercial jet speeds).

The Gulf Corporation Council is composed of six nations, alphabetically:

1. Bahrain
2. Kuwait
4. Sultanate of Oman
6. Qatar
8. Saudi Arabia (GCC Hq in Riyadh)
10. United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Population and wealth information at http://useconomy.about.com/od/worldeconomy/p/gcc.htm

All of the GCC members, and Jordan, are distant from Morocco. While all are politically similar in their distrust of Iran and its proxies, including the Muslim Brotherhood, it seems strange - if the GCC is looking for troops to come to its rescue, that it would ignore closer, more or less moderate, Arab states including Egypt, Libya, Tunis, and Algeria. The GCC also is ignoring perhaps potential, but questionable, allies Sudan and Yemen - which sits next to Oman.

Saudia, along with Jordan, must be concerned not only with Iran and its visions of nuclear domination of the area, but also of Syria and Hezbollah.

In truth, the best friend the GCC would wish for would be Israel, but if Israeli politicians are smart - and THAT IS HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE - they won't agree to any "boots on the ground" arrangements with the GCC or any other Arab state (including Egypt and Jordan). After all, Israel is alleged to "have the bomb" - something Saudi ever more desperately wants for its own protection.

What the GCC needs, and perhaps what it is seeking by courting Morocco, et al, is a "second strike" option. Given the Iranian crazies, the ayatollahs will strike without warning (or perhaps in conjunction with a North Korean attack on South Korea and maybe Japan); all the GCC can do is hope for retaliation to come from a distant state, e.g., Morocco.

The question the GCC states need to ask: will any of their Arab citizens want to defend "their" country that, after all, is only tribal land with artificial borders.

It's that time of year

 

When sleepy Sefardim wish
They were Ashkenazim

 

>קמתי באשמורת לבקש על עוני

The two days of Rosh Hodesh Elul 5773 (2013) are Tuesday and Wednesday, August 6 and 7.

For Sefardim, Selihot starts on Thursday, August 8, 2 Elul.

Most congregations recite selihot before morning prayers. For "HaNetz" congregations, that means early. In my neighborhood, the start time for selihot is 5:25 in the yawning.

In Bet Shean c 1970, a crier would roam the neighborhood yelling "SELIHOT" to wake up the men. My wife complains to this day that the criers also woke up women and children. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, we don't have anyone banging on our doors or yelling "SELIHOT."

Do all men have to rise and shine before dawn?

There are exemptions.

Sleeping in - the conditions.

According to R. Shalom Messas in שמ''ש ומגן, IF a person is a talmed hakham - and I emphasize the word "hakham" - or if the person fears that getting up before dawn will negatively impact the quality of his work or endanger him, then he may sleep in until the Ten Days when he, along with the rest of Israel, must rise for selihot.

Because there are allowances for sleepy heads during Elul, in Morocco, typically only one synagogue in each community was opened for selihot (R. Shalom Messas in ילקוט שמ''ש)

Tallit - leave it in the bag.

According to R. Yosef Messas in הוד יוסף חי the hazan does not put on a tallit gadol for selihot - reasonable given that it still is dark when selihot are read. Unlike Ashkenazim, Sefardim don a tallit only for morning prayers (with the exceptions of 9 Ab and Yom Kippur).

Aramaic - include it or skip it (the angels don't comprehend the language, the rabbis tell us).

According to Ovadia Yosef's ילקוט יוסף, the Aramaic portions of selihot must be said with a minyan. According to R. Shlomo Toledano in דברי שלום ואמת the tradition in North Africa (Morocco, Algiers, Libya) is that minyan or not, the Aramaic is included.

What about women?

The standard answer is "women are exempt" because selihot is at a (less or more) fixed time.

That does not mean that women are prohibited from participating in selihot services; many do. They normally leave before the morning service commences.

yohanon.glenn at gmail dot com