Council Matters

We welcome you to another edition of the Israel Connection, brought to you by THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the Baltimore Jewish Council. This e-newsletter includes such items as: news updates about Israel and the Middle East, Action Alerts, and upcoming programming. Our goal is to provide you with relevant information that you can use in your advocacy efforts and to express your support and solidarity with the people of Israel. We welcome your feedback - please email us at lkatzen@baltjc.org or call Lynn Katzen at the Baltimore Jewish Council at 410-542-4850 with your comments.

Israel recently marked the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War. Now, with the ever-changing realities produced by the violent conflict between Hamas and Fatah, these articles reflect on the possibilities for a “New Middle East.”

No Pyrrhic Victory
By BRET STEPHENS, June 5, 2007, The Wall Street Journal
On the morning of June 5, 1967, a fleet of low-flying Israeli jets surprised the Egyptian air force on the ground and destroyed it. This act of military pre-emption helped save Israel from what Iraq's then-President Abdul Rahman Aref had called, only several days earlier, "our opportunity . . . to wipe Israel off the map."....read more

Brothers to the Bitter End
By FOUAD AJAMI, June 19, 2007, The New York Times
So the masked men of Fatah have the run of the West Bank while the masked men of Hamas have their dominion in Gaza. Some see this as a tolerable situation, maybe even an improvement, envisioning a secularist Fatah-run state living peacefully alongside Israel and a small, radical Gaza hemmed in by Israeli troops. It’s always tempting to look for salvation in disaster, but in this case it’s sheer fantasy.…read more

What Went Wrong
By DENNIS ROSS, June 19, 2007, The Wall Street Journal
Nothing is more basic to statecraft than matching objectives and means. Sounds elementary, but it is not necessarily the norm in our foreign policy. Look at Iraq: It is the emblem of a policy that too often has been shaped by a mismatch between objectives and means.…read more

Fatah Isn't the Answer
By MICHAEL OREN, June 20, 2007, The Wall Street Journal
America and its Middle Eastern allies have every reason to panic. The green flags of Hamas are furling over Gaza and the al-Fatah forces trained and financed by the United States have ignominiously fled.…read more